Laura Beers

Laura Beers is a Professor of History at American University in Washington, DC, specializing in modern British and comparative politics. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2007 and has taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on the intersection of politics, culture, and media in modern British history.

Professor Beers's work examines how politics influences and is shaped by cultural and social life, with particular attention to the role of mass media. Her most recent book, Orwell's Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century (2024), explores George Orwell's continuing relevance for understanding contemporary political issues and has received the LA Times Book Prize for Biography and the Shorenstein Center's Goldsmith Prize. Her previous book, Red Ellen: The Life of Ellen Wilkinson, Socialist, Feminist, Internationalist, won the 2017 Stansky Award for best book in modern British history.

Her scholarly articles cover diverse aspects of British political history, including gender politics, media representation, electoral culture, and socialist movements during the interwar period and beyond. The publications consistently demonstrate her expertise in analyzing how political ideas are formed, communicated, and contested through various cultural channels.

• LA Times Book Prize for Biography (2024)
• Shorenstein Center's Goldsmith Prize
• New Yorker Book of the Year (2024)
• BBC History Magazine Book of the Year
• 2017 Stansky Award for best book in modern British history

Professor Beers has also been active in public scholarship, writing for CNN, the Conversation, the Washington Post's 'Made by History' column, the New Statesman, the London Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement. She contributes to BBC current affairs and historical programs and is currently working on a book about the politics of IVF and surrogacy over the past 50 years, funded by a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. She teaches courses including History of Britain II, Winston Churchill's World, and doctoral seminars.