Professor Philip Dwyer

Philip Dwyer is Professor of History and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence. He has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar, a Visiting Fellow to All Souls College, Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Institute for European History in Mainz. His primary research interest was once in eighteenth-century Europe with particular emphasis on the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. His interests are now focused on world history and the history of violence. His articles have appeared in History and Theory, French Historical Studies, The Historical Journal, French History, German History, and War in History. He is the editor of Napoleon and Europe (London: Longmans, 2001); (with Lyndall Ryan), Theatres of Violence: Massacre, Mass Killing and Atrocity throughout History (New York: Berghahn, 2012); and (with Amanda Nettelbeck), Violence, Colonialism and Empire in the Modern World (London: Palgrave, 2018). He the author of Napoleon: The Path to Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), which won the Australian National Biography Award in 2008; Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013); Napoleon: Passion, Death and Resurrection, 1815-1840 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018); and more recently Violence: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022). He is the general editor (with Joy Damousi)of the four-volume Cambridge World History of Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); and co-editor of a three-volume Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). 

Recent Publications

Violence: A Very Short Introduction

The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History and Violence  

Reviews

This bracing and comprehensive set of essays on Steven Pinker's influential case for the decline of violence is definitive in its arguments, while also controlled and justified in its exasperation. The implacable engagement demands a rethinking of the relationship between history and social science. ― Samuel Moyn, Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence and Professor of History, Yale University, USA

In this calm refuge from the unwarranted claims and relentless optimism of Steven Pinker's recent books, Dwyer, Micale and their thoughtful colleagues offer new and wide-ranging ways to think about violence, history, and the civilizations that we humans have created and destroyed-a refreshing antidote to wishful thinking. ― Barbara H. Rosenwein, Professor emerita Department of History, Loyola University Chicago, USA

The historians in this constellation of essays come at Pinker's controversial thesis with both hammer and tongs and a fine-tooth comb. With passion and care, they require fans and critics alike to consider the historical conditions that undergird arguments about the psychology of violence. It's a book that even Pinker will have to reckon with. ― Antoinette Burton, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

This volume enlists some of the best historians and historically-oriented social scientists working today to accomplish two urgent tasks. Collectively, they dismantle Steven Pinker's popular and misleading thesis that we humans are living in an ever more peaceful world. They also open up vital questions about what counts as violence and how violence itself has changed over time. ― Sophia Rosenfeld, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, USA

This collection of essays restores common sense and a critical perspective to the discussion of the place of violence in our collective history. The important historical question as to the meaning of violence over time and space is a subject too important to be swept up in a paean of praise to ourselves. Dwyer and Micale are to be thanked for gathering together a set of incisive and original essays enabling us to go beyond Pinker's work in the effort to do justice to the history of violence in our time. ― Jay Winter, Charles J. Stille Professor of History emeritus, Yale University, USA

Steven Pinker's pseudo-historical writings promote the worship of teleology and the naive acceptance of modern (Western) man's solipsistic claims to superiority over all "dark" Others, past and present. In this tenacious periodizing schema, "we" have rejected "the medieval" for an "enlightened" world of endless progress. These contributions by Philip Dwyer, Mark Micale, and their colleagues take well-aimed blows at the foundations of white privilege and patriarchy that undergird such ahistorical theories. ― Carol Symes, Associate Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Founding Executive Editor of The Medieval Globe, USA

The brilliant and considered contributions to Darker Angels add up to a devasting indictment from which the 'Pinker thesis' will never recover. Demonstrating the shallow scholarship that informs so many of Pinker's empirical judgments, this book also shatters his Panglossian ideology that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." ― Jeffrey C. Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University, USA

Research Expertise
My research focus was on late eighteenth and early nineteenth century French and European history, with a particular interest in the history of European state-relations, political history, biography, iconography, war, memory, and identity during the Napoleonic Wars. My current preoccupation with the history of violence has led me to an interest in global history. I am currently writing a history of violence from pre-history to the present. As the Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence, we welcome researchers and postgraduate students exploring all aspects of violence, including its concepts, representations, and aftermaths, as well as questions of interpersonal, political and cultural violence.

Teaching Expertise
I teach a range of courses across Modern European History, including the compulsory first year subject, HIST1001, Europe and the World; and HIST3006, The History of Violence.

Administrative Expertise
Assistant Dean Research–Faculty of Education and Arts, 2018.

Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence.

Collaborations
My research focus has shifted from late eighteenth and early nineteenth century French and European history toward world history and the history of violence. My current research involves tackling the question of violence in human history, and the degree to which humans are, or have been, violent in the past. The major publication stemming from this work will be The Savage Heart, to be published by Bloomsbury in the UK. I am also collaborating with a number of scholars in Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and North America, on four other related projects.

The first is a comparative study of colonisation and massacre in the modern world, 1780-1820, funded by the Australia Research Council, which looks at colonialism, warfare and violence in Australia, South Africa, North America and Europe.

The second is a history of iconoclasm from ancient times to the present, co-authored with Nikolas Orr.

The third is a study on the aftermaths of war, 1815-1945, funded by the Australia Research Council.

The fourth project involves is a six-volume Cultural History of Violence, with Bloomsbury Academic. My colleagues and I (5 editors and 54 authors) are attempting to think differently about violence in history, the language used by historians to describe the processes of violence, and the extent to which all peaceful, civil societies are predicated on violence.