Professor Peter Hennessy
Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield, Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History
Email: p.j.hennessy@qmul.ac.uk
Profile
As journalist for over 20 years – with spells on The Times, The Financial Times and The Economist – I unearthed the hidden wiring of the constitution and the power of the machinery of government in Britain.
Those themes remained at the heart of my research and teaching at Queen Mary when I moved from journalism to academia in 1992. Since then, it has been my aim to write the history of my own country, in my own times, for academic and public audiences alike.
Research
Research Interests:
My research interests range widely across all aspects of contemporary British History. I have concentrated in particular on:
- Prime ministerial and Cabinet government
- Whitehall and the hidden wiring of the British constitution
- The Secret State and Cold War Britain
- The Bomb
- Nuclear submarines
Publications
- Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of One’s Own Times (link is external) (2012)
- Cabinets and the Bomb (link is external) (2007)
- Having It So Good: Britain in the Fifties (link is external) (2006)
- The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (link is external) (2002)
- The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945 (link is external) (2000)
- The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution (link is external) (1995)
- Never Again: Britain 1945-51 (link is external) (1992)
- Whitehall (link is external) (1989)
- Cabinet (link is external) (1986)