Dr Pierre Purseigle

University of Warwick

Research

My research to date has focused on the comparative history of Britain and Europe during the First World War and on the urban experience of warfare.

I have researched and published on wartime social mobilization, the experience of refugees, and pictorial humour. My publications analyse the process of nationalization and political mobilization in Britain and France in the long nineteenth century, the historiography of the First World War, resource mobilization in both world wars, and the transformations of the state in the Great War. My individual publications and contributions to the historiographical debate in this field testify to my commitment to a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of Britain and Europe.

I am currently writing a book on the reconstitution of urban communities in Europe in the aftermath of the First World War (1914-1939). This project proposes to shed new light on the reconstruction of these regions to analyse the rebuilding of European lives in the wake of the conflict. It will thus produce an urban history of the transition from war to peace.

I am also working on the history of urban crises and disasters, trying to shed degree of historical light on the contemporary debate on urban resilience. 

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