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Professor Martyn Frampton

Martyn

Professor of Modern History

Email: m.frampton@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 8371
Room Number: ArtsTwo 2.29
Office Hours: Research leave, Semester A and B 2024-5

Profile

Martyn Frampton is Professor of Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of four books and numerous academic articles that examine questions of war and peace, political contestation, international history and the nature of historical change. In addition to his historical work, Frampton has led successive policy impact projects. 

Frampton began his career in Cambridge, where he achieved a Double Starred First in History, an MPhil in International Relations and PhD in History. He was then appointed to a Junior Research Fellowship at Peterhouse from 2007, before moving to Queen Mary in 2009.

Frampton’s research focuses on several interconnected fields: the history of political conflict in Ireland; the nature of the British Empire and anti-imperialist resistance movements; the history of Islamism; and Anglo-American foreign policy. Across these spheres, he has focused particularly on how socio-political movements that challenge the state develop and sustain themselves; how ideology and violence interact; and how democratic governments respond to political insurgency.

His work on Northern Ireland has produced several major studies, including The Long March: The Political Strategy of Sinn Féin, 1981–2007 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), Talking to Terrorists (Hurst & Co./Columbia University Press, 2009) and Legion of the Rearguard: Dissident Irish Republicanism (Irish Academic Press, 2011). He has continued to publish on Irish republican politics and political violence in leading journals including the Journal of British Studies, English Historical Review, Modern British History, Contemporary British History, and Irish Political Studies.

Alongside this, his research on Empire, foreign policy and Islamism culminated in a major study, The Muslim Brotherhood and the West: A History of Enmity and Engagement (Harvard University Press, 2018). Based on an AHRC Leadership Fellowship awarded in 2014–15, this work of international history drew on archives in Cairo, London and Washington D.C., to trace the evolution of British and American policy towards the Brotherhood across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, challenging both alarmist and naively optimistic readings of that relationship.

His forthcoming book, supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, is a major new comparative study of the new nationalist movements that emerged to challenge the British Empire in Ireland, India and Egypt, in the two decades prior to the First World War. Provisionally entitled, ‘Ourselves Alone: The New Nationalists and the Struggle against Empire, 1900-16’, it will be published by Princeton University Press.

Underpinning this multi-faceted research agenda is a commitment to what has variously been called “applied” and “contemporary” history, as a distinctive mode of enquiry. A new strand of work explores this theme in greater detail, drawing particularly on the framework articulated by Geoffrey Barraclough: an insistence that historians attend to underlying structural change rather than surface narrative; and that the history of our era demands a genuinely global, rather than Eurocentric perspective.

Research

Research Interests:

Frampton’s research interests include the history of political conflict in Ireland; the nature of the British Empire and anti-imperialist resistance movements; the history of Islamism; and Anglo-American foreign policy.

Publications

Books:

  • The Muslim Brotherhood and the West: A History of Enmity and Engagement (Harvard University Press: London, 2018) ISBN 9780674241664
  • Legion of the Rearguard: Dissident Irish Republicanism (Irish Academic Press: Dublin, 2010) ISBN-13: 978-0716530558
  • The Long March: The Political Strategy of Sinn Fein 1981-2007 (Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2009) ISBN-13: 978-0230202177
  • Talking to Terrorists: The search for peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque country ( Hurst & Co.: London, 2009; and Columbia University Press: New York, 2009) ISBN-13: 978-1850659662 [co-authored]. 

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals: 

  • ‘Between engagement and proscription: the British State’s dilemma in dealing with Sinn Fein, 1981–90’, Modern British History, 37, 1 (2026)
  • ‘Keeping the faith, or old wine in new bottles? The Republican Network for Unity and the dilemmas of dissident Irish republicanism’, Contemporary British History, 39, 4 (2025), 653–682
  • ‘Who Blinked First? Debating the Origins of the Northern Irish Peace Process’, The English Historical Review, 140 (2025), 808–845
  • ‘A neglected turning-point? The 1985 Northern Irish local elections and the transformation of Irish republicanism’, Irish Political Studies, 39, 4 (2024), 643–668
  • ‘The Moral Parameters of Violence: The Case of the Provisional IRA’, Journal of British Studies, 6, 1 (2022), 138-161
  • ‘Reading the Runes? The United States and the Muslim Brotherhood as seen through the Wikileaks Cables’, The Historical Journal, 56, 3 (2013), 827-856
  • ‘“Don't mention the war!” Debating Notion of a “Stalemate” in Northern Ireland’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 40, 2 (2012), 287-301 [co-authored]
  • “Embuscades et agents secrets: la <<sale guerre>> des Britanniques en Irlande du Nord”, Critique Internationale, 41 (Octobre-Décembre 2008), 21-39
  • “Sinn Féin and the European Arena: ‘Ourselves Alone’ or ‘Critical Engagement’?”, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 16 (2005), 235-53
  • “‘Squaring the Circle’: The Foreign Policy of Sinn Féin, 1983-89”, Irish Political Studies, 19, 2 (Winter 2004), 43-63

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Books:

  • ‘The Qur‘an is their Constitution: The Muslim Brothers and Ideas of Governance’, chapter for edited collection, Joana Cook and Shiraz Maher (eds), The Rule is for None but Allah: Islamist approaches to governance (C. Hurst & Co.: London, 2023), 37-57
  • ‘Beyond “Slavish” Imitation: The Politics of Cultural Authenticity and the Global Struggle against Empire, in Fearghal McGarry and Patrick Mannion (eds), The Irish Revolution: A Global History (New York University Press: New York, 2022), 33-60
  • ‘History and the Definition of Terrorism’, in Richard English (ed.), The Cambridge History of Terrorism (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2021), 31-57
  • ‘The Long 20th Century’ in Erica Chenoweth et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism. (Oxford Univerity Press; Oxford, 2019), 115-29 [co-authored]
  • ‘Between “Engagement” and a “Values-Led” Approach: Britain and the Muslim Brotherhood from 9/11 to the Arab Spring’, in Lorenzo Vidino (ed.), Western Governments and Political Islam after 2011 (Al Mesbar: Dubai, 2013), 32-55 [co-authored].
  • ‘Tattawurat fi-l-siyasa al-britaniya nahwa al-islamiyin’, in al-Hakumat al-gharbiya wa-l-islam al-siyasi ba‘d 2011 [in Arabic] (Al Mesbar: Dubai, 2012), 65-109.
  • ‘Agents and Ambushes’: Britain’s “Dirty War” in Northern Ireland’, in Samy Cohen (ed.), Democracies at War against Terrorism: A Comparative Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2008), 77-100

Pamphlets/Reports:

Supervision

I welcome applications for PhDs that will examine:

  • All aspects of the conflict in Northern Ireland
  • The history of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements
  • Anglo-American Foreign Policy 
  • The ideology and culture of terrorist/insurgent/subversive groups
  • State responses to subversive/violent challenges

Current PhD Students: 

  • Mark Jamieson, ‘The Anglo-Irish Agreement and the reshaping of Anglo-Irish Relations’ (May 2024-)
  • Will Watson, ‘Fear and Anger: The Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland, 1963 – 1973’ (Co-Supervisor, April 2019 -- )

Past PhD Students:

  • John Russell, ‘Zionism and anti-Zionism in the Labour Party, 1935-1967’ (Co-Supervisor, October 2021-July 2026)
  • Tanroop Sandhu, ‘Representations of Indian Freedom in the Leninist Moment’ (Co-Supervisor, September 2021-December 2025)
  • Emine Bal, ‘Modern Adaptations of Maqasid Theory: A Historical Analysis’ (Co-Supervisor, October 2020-December 2024)
  • Claire Alexandra Green – ‘Identity, authority and myth-making: Politically-motivated prisoners and the use of music during the Northern Irish conflict, 1962 – 2000’ (Co-supervisor, Jan. 2016 - July 2019) 
  • Timothy Riding – ‘Producing Space in the English East India Company’s Western Presidency, 1612-1780’ (Second Supervisor, September 2015-June 2018)
  • Kaj Andrew Arends – ‘An Economic History of Association Football in England, 1920-2010’ (First Supervisor, 2014-18) 
  • Ghada Rifai – ‘British Economic Policy in Palestine, 1919-1935: Haifa Habour Construction, A Case Study’ (Co-Supervisor, Oct. 2012 - Oct. 2016) 
  • Mark Sampson – ‘The Transformation of Elite-Level Association Football in England, 1970 to the Present’ (Co-Supervisor, Sept. 2011 - Oct. 2016)
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