Emile Chabal

Shabana Mahmood is an avatar of open Britain – that’s what makes her fable about immigration so seductive | Nesrine Malik ‘She is the daughter of immigrants,’ supporters of her cruel asylum policies say. ‘How can she be wrong?’ Let me put them straight, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

And @nesrinemalik.bsky.social agrees (because it's true!): www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Of all the arguments that Mahmood is making for her wretched immigration "reforms", this is one of the most self-serving and disngenuous. It's also wrong. By attacking the principle of settlement, she is quite literally attacking people like her. Shame on her.

Wow, the pressure!

Thanks! :)

My British Academy project is on the road this week as some of the project team present a panel at #nacbs2025 in snowy Montreal! If you fancy an early-morning wake-up call, come along to hear us talk about identity politics, multiculturalism, prisons, and political mobilisation...

FYI, paywall-free PDF here: emilechabal.com/files/ukimmi...

Britain Is Having the World’s Most Extreme Immigration Debate The British discourse makes even the Trump administration look moderate.

I wrote something with the wonderful @mcslaven.bsky.social about how the immigration debate in the UK has becoming so mind-bogglingly radicalised.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/05/b...

Thanks for circulating this Speranta! I wrote it with a colleague (with whom I worked on a research project some years ago). We felt we had to say something about the mind-boggling radicalisation of immigration rhetoric and policy proposals in the UK...

Haha.

Cool! You may be waiting for a while, but, hey, it's good to be in anticipation of something, right..?

Thanks, Nat! Still has to see the light of day, but everything becomes more real when you see the front cover...

The Age of Hobsbawm — Harvard University Press An intellectual biography of Eric Hobsbawm, one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century.Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) was one of the foremost European intellectuals of the twentieth cent...

It seems unreal after so many years in preparation, but my Hobsbawm book is almost there! It now has a front cover and a place on the publisher's website. Publication is due in August.

www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

So am I! In fact, that's the first time the book has appeared on the HUP website. It's getting more and more real by the day...

We don't bite and we publish good stuff. Nuff said.

Teaching Fellow in Twentieth Century Black British History at University of Leeds Discover Teaching Fellow in Twentieth Century Black British History jobs and more in higher education on jobs.ac.uk. Apply for further details on the top job board.

Job Opportunity!

Teaching Fellow in Twentieth Century Black British History
University of Leeds - Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Cultures - School of History

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPF977/t...

Just returned from this wonderful workshop we organised as a project team. Such a pleasure to hear amazing young & established researchers speaking about their research. Hooray for academic collaboration!

For more info on our @britishacademy.bsky.social-funded project: hca.ed.ac.uk/history/rese...

Ha, lol, mais je partage quand-même avec vous l'entretien au cas où... emilechabal.com/files/expres...

Another really stimulating interview about the book :)

www.nonfiction.fr/article-1244...

This is now out in the world - get your copy now! 🙂

"La France ne va pas si mal que ça !" : les paradoxes français analysés par l’historien britannique Emile Chabal Alors que notre pays est plongé dans une crise politique inédite, le professeur à l’Université d’Edimbourg analyse les contradictions françaises, entre anticapitalisme de façade, réthorique révolution...

I guess France is doing OK if someone has agreed to interview me... 😄

www.lexpress.fr/idees-et-deb...

Le paradoxe français: Une nouvelle histoire de la France contemporaine Le paradoxe français: Une nouvelle histoire de la France contemporaine : Chabal, Emile: Amazon.fr: Books

Vous voulez comprendre les racines profondes de la crise politique actuelle en France? Quoi de mieux que mon petit livre qui va paraître le 23 octobre et qui traite notamment de la désintégration du paysage politique français!

A commander en librairie ou sur Amazon: www.amazon.fr/paradoxe-fra...

I'm not sure what to say about French politics anymore. First as tragedy, then as farce, then as some Czech surrealist movie, then as Sébastien Lecornu..?

🦋 With Bluesky's membership growing, here's a reminder that we've put together not one but TWO starter packs of people, journals and institutions working and publishing in our field.

Follow one contemporary European historian, get 149 free!

go.bsky.app/SU3jCJb

Dear Immigrant. When you’ve finished your night shift at A&E, please spend a couple of hours picking litter in the park or we’ll kick you out. Yours, the Labour Party

I really did love this article I edited! (To see more editorial recommendations, check out the Contemporary European History editorial digest here: tinyurl.com/38p3yxky)

Honestly, there has been enough of UK governments playing political games with immigrants' status. That's what paved the way to the Windrush Scandal. For a Labour government, having pledged to learn the lessons of Windrush, to be doing the same is really bad www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

Our collaborative book couldn't be more topical in the light of the recent announcement about digital ID cards. Mike's work on the UK is particularly relevant in thinking about why the UK doesn't have ID cards and what could happen if it tries to implement them.

Sarkozy will actually go to jail? Bloody hell, things are *happening* in French politics. Never a dull moment!

PS. It's OK, I can't follow Sarko's dozens of corruption scandals either.

Sébastien Lecornu? What a yawnfest. Somehow this end-of-reign Macron regime is managing to be totally unexpected and totally boring all at once.

If you want to reduce small boat crossings, find ways to support the arrival of family members of refugees in the UK so they won't cross irregularly (like existed for family already in the EU pre-Brexit, via the Dublin system). Instead the government is doing something that will worsen the problem