Dr William Foster

Specialities:

War and cultures of violence in Modern Europe, 1900-present. 

Switzerland and transnational Alpine Europe.

I am currently completing a book on the long-term encounters between Russians and Americans who from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century constructed their own successive real and imaginary versions of empires, anti-empires, nations and eventually 'superpowers'. This is entitled Russians and Americans: a history of two peoples in contact, conflict, and convergence from the age of revolution to the end of the cold war and beyond.

My most recent research concerns the historically and culturally-rooted problem of how Europeans have conceptualised their own defence, including the development of armed neutrality. The two projects involved with this carry the provisional titles of Switzerland in the World: A History of Democracy, Diplomacy and Well-Armed Neutrality, and Europeans Defending Europe: the fall and rise of the idea of common European security from Potsdam to Ukraine.

I supervise for the MPhil in Modern European History and for the PhD.

Please note: I am on research leave for the academic year 2024-25.

Historical Tripos Part IB, Topics Paper: 'Europe's Modern Age of Violence, 1914-1949' .

Historical Tripos Part II, Advanced Topic: 'Connected Histories of the US and USSR/Russia’.

Please note: I am on research leave for the 2024-25 academic year.