University Associate Professor in Modern British History, University of Cambridge

Helen McCarthy joined the Faculty of History in September 2018 following nine years at Queen Mary University of London. She completed her PhD at the Institute of Historical Research (School of Advanced Study, University of London) in 2008 and held a research fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge, in 2008-9. In May 2015 she was Visiting Lecturer at Historical Studies Center, Northwestern University, Chicago. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy.

Helen has broad research interests in the social, cultural and political history of Britain since the late nineteenth century. Her first book, The British People and the League of Nations (2011), explored the dynamics and popular reach of liberal internationalism between 1918 and 1945, taking as its focus the League of Nations Union, one of the largest voluntary associations of the period. Her second book, Women of the World (2014), is a pioneering study of the role of women in British diplomatic culture over the past century and a half. This interest in the social and cultural history of British diplomacy led to a successful bid in partnership with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historians for two AHRC-funded collaborative doctoral studentships (2013-7).

Helen's current book project is a major history of working motherhood in modern Britain, provisionally entitled Double Lives, to be published by Bloomsbury Books. She was awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship by the British Academy in 2017-8 to work on the project, which included co-creating with the photographer Leonora Saunders an exhibition - These Four Walls - on the theme of women's home-based work. This was launched at the British Academy's Summer Showcase in June 2018 and will be touring in various venues in 2018-9.