Dr Peter Brooke

Departmental Lecturer in Global and Imperial History

Wolfson College

peter.brooke@history.ox.ac.uk

I research and teach the history of modern Africa and the global history of British colonialism. I hold a Senior Research Fellowship at the University of Johannesburg and I am a Research Associate at the African Studies Centre, Oxford. My current research is funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant. Recently I contributed to a major project on 'Teaching the British Empire, migration, and belonging in English secondary schools' (University of Oxford and Institute of Education, London). Before joining the Faculty of History in 2026 I was a Departmental Lecturer in African Studies at Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, a research fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge and a secondary school teacher in London. I hold a BA and MPhil from Cambridge and a PhD from King's College, London.

Research Interests

Modern African history
Global history of British colonialism
Politics of race in 1960s Britain
History of technology and media

My research analyses the impact of decolonisation on politics and society. I address this enquiry from three perspectives with a particular interest in the continuities that spanned the watershed of independence. My current project explores how the emergence of radio technology from the 1920s transformed the public sphere, in Africa more than any other region, but also how its impact was gendered and racialised. At the same time the airwaves became a battleground for colonial, anti-colonial, Cold War, national and commercial broadcasters who competed to win African audiences before and after the end of empire. Previously I analysed the informal networks that developed between political elites who brokered the process of imperial withdrawal and their impact on colonial politics. This part of my research was centred on the figure of Duncan Sandys who managed the busiest years of the decolonisation process while he was in office and later became a lobbyist for white settlers, traditional rulers and corporate interests in the 1960s. The third strand of my research investigated how mass immigration from the so-called New Commonwealth brought empire home in ways that transformed the British political landscape. I analysed how the politics of race and immigration fostered competing imaginaries of empire in the political thought of Sandys and his ally Enoch Powell, and how these ideas shaped the rise of the New Right and Black Power in Britain. The scope of my research ranges widely across anglophone Africa, South Arabia, India and Britain but my current work on the history of radio is focussed on Ghana and Zambia where I have conducted extensive archival and oral history research.

Featured Publications

Duncan Sandys and the Informal Politics of Britain's Late Decolonisation (Palgrave, 2017)

Duncan Sandys and the Informal Politics of Britain’s Late Decolonisation (Palgrave, 2018)

This book throws new light on the impact of informal ‘old boy' networks on British decolonisation. Duncan Sandys was one of the leading Conservative politicians of the middle decades of twentieth-century Britain. He was also a key figure in the Harold Macmillan's ‘Winds of Change' policy of decolonisation, serving as Secretary for the Colonies and Commonwealth Relations from 1960 to 1964. When he lost office he fought strenuously to undermine the new Labour Government's attempts to accelerate colonial withdrawal and improve race relations in Britain.

Teaching

I would like to hear from Masters students looking at Modern African History.

I currently teach:

FHS:	Masters:
FS 23 Transformations and Transitions in African History from 1800	MSc in African Studies
	MSt in Global and Imperial History

Option paper: African Decolonisation

Publications

Period Modern

Region Africa British Isles & Ireland Transnational & International

Specialism Gender History Global & Imperial History History of Science, Medicine & Technology Political History Race History