Barbara Emerson

{{Short description|English historian and biographer}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

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| name = Barbara Emerson

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| nationality = British

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| alma_mater = St. Hilda's College, Oxford

| occupation = Historian and Biographer

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| spouse = Michael Emerson (div)

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Barbara Emerson is an English historian and biographer, known for her biography of King Leopold II of Belgium. She was also a fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.{{cite web |url=http://blogs.dickinson.edu/advanced-historical-method-304/2010/09/22/author-bios/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121214154330/http://blogs.dickinson.edu/advanced-historical-method-304/2010/09/22/author-bios/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-12-14 |title=» Author Bios Advanced Historical Method 304 |publisher=Blogs.dickinson.edu |date=2010-09-22 |accessdate=2013-05-11 }}

Emerson received her degree in PPE from St Hilda's College, Oxford where she later taught.{{cite web |url=http://www.oxfordandcambridge.be/_cambridge/Cambridge_Society_of_Belgium/2005.10.02.html |title="The memory of Congo : the colonial era" |publisher=Oxfordandcambridge.be |date=2005-10-02 |accessdate=2013-05-11 |archive-date=14 April 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414220442/http://www.oxfordandcambridge.be/_cambridge/Cambridge_Society_of_Belgium/2005.10.02.html |url-status=dead }}

She was highly critical of Adam Hochschild's book King Leopold's Ghost, rebuking it in The Guardian as "a very shoddy piece of work."{{cite journal | url=https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/13/features11.g22 | title=The Hidden Holocaust | date=13 May 1999 | last=Bates | first=Stephen | journal=The Guardian}}