David Rutherford Priestland is a British historian. He is Professor of Modern History at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

St Edmund Hall St Edmund Hall (also known as The Hall and Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university" and was the last ...

. He has served as the college's vice-principal since April 2023.

Career

Priestland completed his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the

. He was elected to a junior research fellowship at St Edmund Hall and a Darby fellowship at Lincoln College before becoming a tutorial fellow at St Edmund Hall in 1992 following the retirement of H. E. J. Cowdrey. Priestland's research focuses on the history of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and the development of

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

and

neoliberalism Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pe ...

. He is an occasional political and cultural commentator for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' and ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

''. His main works include a global history of communism, ''The Red Flag'', a history of Stalinism in the USSR, and a historical sociological essay on modern global history focusing on neoliberalism and global capitalism, "Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power", which focuses mainly on a power struggle between three "castes", or socio-cultural groups, fighting for domination within society. Priestland's main argument is that humanity has shifted from societies oriented towards a warrior-class, through periods of sage dominance into a modern hegemony of merchants, which has culminated in dominance by businesspeople and entrepreneurs. In the book, Priestland's voice is mostly critical of global capitalism, which has attracted some notable criticism from other academics. However, Richard J. Evans, former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, comments in ''

'' that "among the many contributions to the dissection of our current predicament, this is surely one of the most-thought provoking".

Selected works

* ''Stalinism and The Politics of Mobilization: Ideas, Power, and Terror in Inter-War Russia''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007 * ''The Red Flag''. Allen Lane 2009, (The three English-language editions 2009-2010 each have different subtitles: How Communism Changed The World; Communism and the Making of the Modern World; A History of Communism) ** ''World History of Communism. From the French Revolution to today.'' Translated by Klaus-Dieter Schmidt. Siedler, Munich 2009, ** ''World History of Communism''.

Federal Agency for Civic Education The Federal Agency for Civic Education (FACE, (''bpb'')) is a German federal government agency responsible for promoting civic education. It is subordinated to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Thomas Krüger has served as president of t ...

, Bonn . ** Russian edition: '' Красный флаг ''. история коммунизма, Krasnyi flag: Istorija kommunizma, ЭКСМО / EKSMO, Moskva 2011 * ''Merchant, Soldier, Sage. A New History of Power.'' London: Allen Lane, 2012 * ''Merchant, soldier, sage: a history of the world in three castes''. New York: Penguin Press, 2013

References

External links

Priestland's profile at St Edmund Hall

Priestland's profile at the University of Oxford Faculty of History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Priestland, David Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Alumni of the University of Oxford Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford Fellows of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Historians of the University of Oxford Historians of communism Historians of the Soviet Union 20th-century British historians 21st-century British historians 20th-century British male writers 21st-century British male writers