Research
Scholarship and Writing.
Research interests
Imperial History
The structures, ideologies, and legacies of British imperial rule in the twentieth century.
Political Activism
Grassroots movements, radical politics, and organised resistance across the empire.
Decolonisation
The contested processes by which empires ended and new nations were formed.
Communist Histories
The global spread of communist thought and its entanglement with anti-colonial struggle.
The Cold War
Superpower rivalry, proxy conflicts, and the ideological battles of the late twentieth century.
Radicalism
Left-wing radicalism, dissent, and the politics of liberation in the Cold War era.
Current project
Anti-Colonial Activism in Britain
Lydia's current project examines anti-colonial activism in Britain in the 1940s - 1960s. It explores the tactics, ideology and impact of activist groups such as the Movement for Colonial Freedom and the Communist Party of Great Britain, and draws on archives in Europe and the Caribbean to reconstruct the networks of solidarity, ideology, and mutual interest that connected radical activists across the globe.
In progress — University of southampton