Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Miles Taylor joined the Centre in 2021 as Professor of British History and Society. He was previously Professor of Modern History at the University of York in the UK, and between 2008 and 2014 Director of the Institute of Historical Research in London.

He studied at Queen Mary College University of London, Harvard University (where he was a Kennedy Scholar) and the University of Cambridge where he was awarded his PhD in 1989. He has taught at Cambridge, King’s College London, and Southampton (where he was Professor of Modern British History, 2001-4).

Professor Taylor is a 19th century specialist with a particular interest in Britain and its empire. His recent books include Empress: Queen Victoria and India (Yale 2018) and (as co-editor) The Utopian Universities: A Global History of the New Campuses of the 1960s (Bloomsbury, 2020), The British Aristocracy and the Modern World (The British Academy, 2025), Salt, Protest and Public Health in Modern India (London: Routledge 2026) and Berlin and the BBC A Century of Sound and Vision, due for release by De Gruyter 20 July 2026.

He is currently leading a 150th anniversary project on the Berlin conferences of 1878 and 1884. He also co-convenes a research seminar on the History of Universities (History of Universities Seminar) and is General Editor of the New Cambridge History of Britain to be published in five volumes by Cambridge University Press in 2027.

Professor Taylor is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and an elected member of the International Commission of the History of the Universities (ICHU).