Welcome! I am a historian of the eighteenth-century world, particularly the British Empire and the many Indigenous societies it encountered. I also have interests in visual history, anthropological history, experimental uses of biography, and issues surrounding higher education and the humanities. On this site you’ll find links to my historical writing, reflections on my historical reading, and discussions of various historical engagements (oh, and an unlikely page on swimming). 

Acknowledgement: I live on Ngambri and Ngunnawal-speaking Country, and my university is on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country. Both are unceded lands, which have nurtured one of the oldest living cultures in the world.

[HEADER PICTURE CREDIT: “PRINCE LE BOO,” (C.1785), NAT. LIB. OF AUSTRALIA. 3837 #U7224 NK1675]

Recent Posts

Waves Across the South

by kfullagar, posted in Published Reviews, Uncategorized

Reviewed in American Historical Review Sept. 2022. Oceanic metaphors do a lot of work in this new book by Sujit Sivasundaram. Waves Across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire analyses the “clash of waves” that occurred when Europeans moved into the Indo-Pacific region during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries… To … Continue reading Waves Across the South

The Chiefs Now In This City

by kfullagar, posted in Published Reviews

At the enormous conference between Indigenous and colonial leaders in Augusta, Georgia, in November 1763, a Cherokee leader from Chota staged a piece of political theater. Kittagusta, “the Prince of Chota,” stretched out before the assembled delegates “a string of beads with three knots.”…. Read the full review of “The Chiefs Now in This City”: … Continue reading The Chiefs Now In This City

Remembering Sydney Cove

by kfullagar, posted in Engaging

This short piece was written for the retirement surprise festschrift for Simon Schaffer, the funniest and most warm-hearted historian-of-science I know. It’s on Phillip and a long-lost print of Sydney Cove found in a Bath attic…. The whole 400-page festschrift is open access here. My four-page tribute is here:

More Posts