Dr Alastair Paynter BA, MA, PhD
Visiting academic
I am interested in nineteenth-century British history, the history of politics and political culture and the role of monarchy in the modern world. I completed my BA and MA in History at the University of Southampton. This led to a PhD on the emergence of libertarian conservatism in Britain from the Second Reform Act in 1867 to the outbreak of the First World War. My thesis involved an examination of the nature of liberalism and conservatism, and of the interplay between political thought and practical politics in an era of great transformation. I used the settler colonies of Australia as a case study to examine the way political ideas were exchanged and adapted across the Anglosphere.
After receiving my PhD in 2018 I embarked on a project, funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, looking at the reception of Ancient Greece in Victorian political culture. At the heart of this project was the lifelong relationship between four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone and Homer. As with other contemporary commentators on Antiquity, Gladstone brought his own political leanings to bear upon the way the Homeric world was interpreted, as ancient history was mediated through present political debates. One of the points of contention in nineteenth-century Homeric political debate was the nature of kingship and its relation to the other two constituent parts of the Homeric polity: the council and the assembly. These particular questions relate to broader, more perennial themes of political thought, such as the relationship between monarchy, aristocracy and democracy.
Presently, I am especially interested in the relationship between these themes in the modern world and how the history of monarchy informs its continuing role today, with a special focus on the Principality of Liechtenstein.