Peter Mandler

Mandler was born in 1958 in Boston, Massachusetts.{{cite web|title=Professor Peter Mandler|url=http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/pm297@cam.ac.uk |work=The Faculty|publisher=Faculty of History, University of Cambridge|access-date=2018-12-20}} The elder brother of Michael Mandler, he is son of psychologists George Mandler and Jean Mandler who moved their family to La Jolla in 1965 when they joined the UCSD faculty.

After attending Magdalen College, Oxford, as an undergraduate, Mandler completed his PhD at Harvard where he wrote a 1984 dissertation entitled Liberalism and Paternalism: The Whig Aristocracy and the Condition of England, 1830–1852.{{cite thesis |type=PhD |last=Mandler |first=Peter |date=1984 |title=Liberalism and Paternalism: The Whig Aristocracy and the Condition of England|publisher=Harvard University}}

Mandler was an assistant professor of history at Princeton University from 1984-1991.{{cn|date=May 2024}} While there, in 1984 he co-hosted a three-day symposium at Princeton entitled “Socialism in America,” marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of six-time presidential candidate Norman Thomas.{{cite news|title=Panels to Explore Socialist Legacy|last=Horner|first=Shirley|work=New York Times|date=1984-11-04|access-date=2024-05-30 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/04/nyregion/panels-to-explore-socialist-legacy.html}}

Mandler started teaching in Britain in 1991 at London Guildhall University, and joined the University of Cambridge faculty in 2001.{{cite web|title=Caius historian elected to American Academy of Arts and Science|url=https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/news/caiusfellowmandleracademy|publisher=Gonville & Caius, University of Cambridge|date=2015-05-06|access-date=2018-12-22}} He was President of the Royal Historical Society from 2012 to 2016, and is currently (since 2018) Chair of the Modern History section of the British Academy.{{cite web|title=Professor Peter Mandler FBA|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/peter-mandler-FBA|work=Fellows|publisher=British Academy|access-date=2018-12-21}}

Mandler's main research interests are:

• British history since c. 1800, especially cultural, intellectual and social history;
• the history of the humanities and social sciences in Britain and America;
• concepts and methods in cultural history;
• educational history and policy.

In his review{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4728136/What-is-the-future-of-history.html|website=The Telegraph|title=What is the future of history?|first=Blair|last=Worden|date=2002-07-14|access-date=2018-12-20}} of Mandler's 2002 book History and National Life,{{Cite book|title=History and National Life|last=Mandler|first=Peter|date=2002|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=978-1-86197-469-3|language=en}} historian Blair Worden states that Mandler praises the work of professional historians like Simon Schama, Linda Colley and Niall Ferguson, who address a wide audience, in contrast to most specialists of the discipline, who put their very subject at risk by speaking only between themselves. In Mandler' own words, "there is intrinsic value in keeping the springs of knowledge 'clear and untainted' but there is greater value in ensuring that the supply reaches the consumer in something resembling its original state".{{cite magazine |last=Mandler |first=Peter |date=2002-07-07 |title=What is History for? |url=https://www.historytoday.com/peter-mandler/what-history |magazine=History Today | volume=52 | issue=7}}

Mandler occasionally makes television and radio appearances.See, for instance, {{cite serial |title=Arts & Ideas |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06sfl58 |network=BBC |station=Radio 3 |date=2018-11-21}}

Mandler's is author or editor of the following books:

• Great Philanthropists: Wealth and Charity in the Modern World, 1815-1945 (ed., with David Cesarani) (Vallentine Mitchell, 2017).{{Cite book|title=Great Philanthropists: Wealth and Charity in the Modern World, 1815-1945|editor-last=Mandler|editor-first=Peter|editor-last2=Cesarani|editor-first2=David|date=2017|publisher=Vallentine Mitchell|isbn=978-1-910383-19-3|language=en}}
• Return from the Natives: How Margaret Mead won the Second World War and lost the Cold War (Yale University Press, 2013).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9aCqRoUoKf4C|title=Return from the Natives: How Margaret Mead won the Second World War and lost the Cold War|last=Mandler|first=Peter|date=2013|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-18785-4}}
• From Plunder to Preservation: Britain and the Heritage of Empire, c.1800-1940 (ed., with Astrid Swenson) (British Academy, 2013).{{Cite book|url=https://global.oup.com/academic/product/from-plunder-to-preservation-9780197265413|title=From Plunder to Preservation: Britain and the Heritage of Empire, c.1800-1940|editor-last=Swenson|editor-first=Astrid|editor-last2=Mandler|editor-first2=Peter|date=2013|publisher=British Academy|isbn=978-0-19-726541-3|language=en}}
• The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (Yale University Press, 2006).{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/englishnationalc0000mand|url-access=registration|title=The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair|last=Mandler|first=Peter|date=2006|isbn=0-300-12052-4|publisher= Yale University Press}} Review in The Guardian.{{cite magazine |last=Sansom |first=Ian |date=2007-02-03 |title=National obsession |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/feb/03/society |magazine=The Guardian|access-date=2018-12-22}} Review in The New York Sun.{{cite magazine |last=Kirsch |first=Adam |date=2007-03-19 |title=As English as the English |url=https://www.nysun.com/arts/as-english-as-the-english/50732 |magazine=The New York Sun| access-date=2018-12-22}}
• Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain (ed.) (Oxford University Press, 2006){{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UsMSDAAAQBAJ|title=Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain|editor-last=Mandler|editor-first=Peter|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-927133-7}}.
• History and National Life (Profile Books, 2002). Review in Reviews in History (Institute of Historical Research).{{cite journal |last=Spalding |first=Roger |date=2002-09-30 |title=History and National Life |url=https://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/300 |journal=Reviews in History |number=300}}
• The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home (Yale University Press, 1997).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wQfqCc0gxAoC |title=The Fall and Rise of the Stately Home|last=Mandler|first=Peter|date=1999|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-07869-2|language=en}}
• After the Victorians: Private Conscience and Public Duty in Modern Britain: Essays in memory of John Clive (ed., with Susan Pedersen) (Routledge, 1994).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eqKJAgAAQBAJ|title=After the Victorians: Private Conscience and Public Duty in Modern Britain: Essays in Memory of John Clive|editor-last=Pedersen|editor-first=Susan|editor-last2=Mandler|editor-first2=Peter|date=1994|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-415-07056-2|language=en}}
• The Uses of Charity: The Poor on Relief in the 19th-Century Metropolis (ed.) (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990).{{Cite book|url=http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1218.html|title=The Uses of charity: The Poor on Relief in the Nineteenth-Century Metropolis| editor-last=Mandler|editor-first=Peter|date=1990|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-8214-6|language=en}}
• Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals, 1830-1852 (Clarendon Press, 1990).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ahpAAAAMAAJ|title=Aristocratic Government in the Age of Reform: Whigs and Liberals, 1830-1852|last=Mandler|first=Peter|date=1990|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-821781-7|language=en}}

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Category:Presidents of the Royal Historical Society

Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of history

Category:Living people

Category:1958 births

Category:Fellows of the British Academy

Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Category:Fellows of the Royal Historical Society