Dr Michael Rapport

Reader in Modern European History (History)
Senior Adviser of Studies (Arts & Humanities Academic & Student Administration)

telephone: 0141 330 6462
email: Michael.Rapport@glasgow.ac.uk

School of Humanities

Biography

I joined the historians in the School of Humanities at Glasgow in February 2013. Prior to that, I studied History at the University of Edinburgh, undertook my PhD thesis on the French Revolution at the University of Bristol (under the supervision of Professor William Doyle) and, after a short spell at the University of Sunderland, taught at the University of Stirling for seventeen years.

I was born in New York, but moved to Europe at a very young age, living first in France before moving to England as a child and then to Scotland as an undergraduate student, where I have pretty much stayed ever since. When not teaching, writing and researching, I enjoy hillwalking and trail walking (although I am not a Munro bagger), running (or rather plodding) in the early morning, visiting museums and historical sites, cooking, sampling real ale and spending time with my family: my wife, who teaches Scottish history), my two daughters, our Golden Retriever, a former trainee guide dog whom we helped train as a puppy (we are volunteers with Guide Dogs), and our three-legged daredevil ginger cat.

Research interests

My primary research interests lie in the French Revolution, in the Napoleonic Wars, in the 1848 Revolutions and in 19^th-century Europe. I am also engaged in writing a concise history of Europe from prehistoric times to the present.

I concentrate on three areas of the French Revolution:

The spaces and places of revolutionary Paris, 1789-1799: this project examines how the revolutionaries took over buildings and spaces in the city and then converted and embellished them for their own practical and symbolic needs. It suggests that these changes were as much a part of the transformation in political culture as the introduction of new language, symbols and practices. It also explores how people reacted to these changes to the buildings and spaces around them and offers some ideas about how the alterations to these structures, by physically rearranging buildings, or by giving spaces new purposes, may have shaped political and social behaviour. In doing so, it seeks to cast new light on the process of the revolution in France in the 1790s. I am currently writing a monograph of this subject.
Political Justice in the French Revolution arises from comparative work with my friend and colleague at the University of Stirling, Professor Emma Macleod, on political trials in the later eighteenth century. My work in this area has also contributed to the AHRC-funded project on Writing a New History of Treason, led by Professors Mark Cornwall (Southampton) and André Krischer (Freiburg), https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FY00616X%2F1, with contributions on the image of the traitor in the French Revolution and on the Conciergerie in Paris as a site of memory.
The international impact of the French Revolution looks at the many ways in which the French Revolution resonated across Europe, the Atlantic world and the world (with a special focus on the resonances in South Asia). My particular focus has remained the European impact – in the shape of ideological responses, republicanism and reform, the French Revolutionary Wars and the experience of occupation, annexation and resistance. At some undefined point in the future, I aim to write an accessible book on this subject and in my postgraduate teaching, I run a course on ‘Thomas Paine as an Enlightenment Revolutionary’, which enables students to explore the transnational dimensions across the Atlantic, British Isles and France through the use of the writings of Paine and his contemporaries.

My work on the Napoleonic Wars has included the military aspects, but also the institutional impact, with the attempts to establish Napoleonic institutions in Europe; the experience of occupation and resistance; and the wars as a global conflict. I researched on the Napoleonic regime and responses to it in Belgium, in Germany and more broadly across Europe. In my teaching on the core course for the War Studies MSc, I offer a session on the Battle of Borodino and Napoleon’s campaign in the Russian Empire in 1812.

I have also published on and continue to write about the 1848 Revolutions in Europe, including themes such as the dynamics of the revolutionary cascade that swept across the continent; on the revolutionaries’ conceptions of rights; on those countries that avoided serious revolutionary upheaval and why; and on the global dimension. I am particularly interested in the ways in which 1848-49 was a ‘European revolution’.

I am about to prepare a second edition of my textbook (2005) on Nineteenth Century Europe, 1789-1914 (originally published by Palgrave, now by Bloomsbury). This new edition will be organised around the themes of, first, struggles over different conceptions of freedom, order, and social justice; the various conceptions of ‘Europe’, the forces of integration and divergence and international institutions and relations; ‘global Europe’ – the relations of Europe with the wider world, including empire; and the emergence of modern European societies.

My broad focus on the nineteenth century in Europe has led me to the following projects: to edit the Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Europe and to participate in the AHRC-funded project on The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations, led by Professor Peter Jackson (Glasgow), Dr. Rachel Chin (Glasgow), Dr. Rogelia Pastor-Castro (Strathclyde) and Dr. Rachel Utley (Leeds), https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FR00515X%2F1, which combines studies how historical themes have shaped the rhetoric and reality of relations between France in Britain since 1815 and engages with policy-makers in both countries on how this can be understood in the pursuit of Franco-British relations. I contributed a paper on British and French responses to the Decembrist uprising in the Russian Empire in 1825 and have written an article (still to be published) on how those responses were shaped both my western conceptions of Russia’s past and by an awareness of the historic cross-Channel rivalry.

I am also enjoying the process of writing A Concise History of Europe for Cambridge University Press. It’s a task that has me delving into areas of Europe’s past with which I am less familiar, so it has been a very pleasurable process of learning. It tells the history of Europe from the earliest human settlement to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, focusing in particular on the contradictory forces of integration and divergence; the impact of the wider world on Europe, and vice versa, particularly migration and invasion; recurring conflict and the many different attempts to forge European-wide structures of collaboration and security; and the various ways in which ‘Europe’ and European identity have been conceived.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2009 | 2008 | 2005 | 2000

Number of items: 39.

2025

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2025) The slippery truth of the Dreyfus Affair. BBC History Magazine, pp. 36-41.

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2025) Human rights during the 1848 Revolutions. In: Edelstein, Dan and Pitts, Jennifer (eds.) The Cambridge History of Rights: The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Series: The Cambridge history of rights (4). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York, pp. 407-434. ISBN 9781316519165 (doi: 10.1017/9781009019521.020)

2024

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2024) Review of Jeremy D. Popkin: A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution. Society, 61, pp. 641-646. (doi: 10.1007/s12115-024-01000-9)[Book Review]

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2024) Paris transformed - The Belle Epoque. Good Life France Magazine(39), pp. 106-110.

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2024) The Black Cockade and the Tricolor: Space and place in New York City's responses to the French Revolution. Age of Revolutions, March 4.

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2024) City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Epoque. Bridge Street Press (Little, Brown) and Basic Books: London and New York. ISBN 9781541647497

2023

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2023) Once More unto the Barricades. Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848–1849. Literary Review(517), [Book Review]

2022

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2022) Les visiteurs étrangers et l’espace urbain : un premier pas vers « Une histoire européenne du Paris révolutionnaire » ? La Révolution Francaise, 22, pp. 1-28. (doi: 10.4000/lrf.6277)

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2022) Crossing borders: encounters with the other. In: Forrest, Alan and Hicks, Peter (eds.) The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars: Experience, Culture and Memory. Series: The Cambridge history of the Napoleonic Wars, 3 (3). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge and New York, pp. 142-161. ISBN 9781108417679 (doi: 10.1017/9781108278119.008)

2020

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2020) The global impact of the Napoleonic Wars. BBC History Magazine,

2019

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2019) The 1848 Revolutions: the 'recasting' of 'Restoration Europe'? In: Broers, Michael and Caiani, Ambrogio A. (eds.) A History of the European Restorations: Culture, Society and Religion. Bloomsbury Academic: London ; New York, pp. 267-276. ISBN 9781788318051

2018

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2018) Les pubs, la politique démocratique et la metropole: la lutte pour le contrôle de l’espace à Londres au début des années 1790. In: Dunyach, Jean-François and Gautier, Alban (eds.) Les Mondes Britanniques: Une Communauté de Destins? Presses Universitaires de Rennes, pp. 97-112. ISBN 9782753574854

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2018) Political trials, terror, and civil society: the case of the revolutionary tribunal in Paris, 1793-94. In: Davis, Michael T., Macleod, Emma and Pentland, Gordon (eds.) Political Trials in an Age of Revolution: Britain and the North Atlantic, 1793-1848. Series: Palgrave histories of policing and punishment. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 267-295. ISBN 9783319989587 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-98959-4_11)

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2018) Liberty of Death: The French Revolution, by Peter McPhee. English Historical Review, 133(564), pp. 1328-1330. (doi: 10.1093/ehr/cey240)[Book Review]

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2018) 1848: Europe's Year of Revolution. Modern History Review, 20(3),

2017

Marsh, Ben and Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (Eds.) (2017) Understanding and Teaching the Age of Revolutions. Series: Harvey Goldberg series for understanding and teaching history. The University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, Wisconsin. ISBN 9780299311902

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2017) Two visions of patriotism yet to be reconciled in Macron's France. Herald, 10 May.

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2017) Rebel Cities: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution. Little, Brown: London. ISBN 9781408705230

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2017) Revisiting Prussia’s Wars against Napoleon: history, culture and memory. Social History, 42(2), pp. 284-285. (doi: 10.1080/03071022.2017.1290354)[Book Review]

2016

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2016) A new history looks at when Europe came together: review of R. J. Evans, 'The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914' (New York: Viking, 2016). New York Times Book Review, [Book Review]

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2016) Alliances and treaties: co-operation in war and peace. EGO: European History Online,

2015

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2015) Short List: review of four books on the Battle of Waterloo for the New York Times. New York Times Book Review, [Book Review]

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2015) The French Revolution and early European revolutionary terrorism. In: Law, Randall D. (ed.) The Routledge History of Terrorism. Series: Routledge histories. Routledge: Abingdon and New York, pp. 63-76. ISBN 9780415535779

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2015) Jacobinism from outside. In: Andress, David (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution. Series: Oxford handbooks. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 503-520. ISBN 9780199639748

2014

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2014) Revolution. In: Frie, Ewald and Meier, Mischa (eds.) Aufruhr – Katastrophe – Konkurrenz – Zerfall: Bedrohte Ordnungen als Thema der Kulturwissenschaften. Series: Bedrohte Ordnungen (1). Mohr Siebeck: Tubingen, pp. 279-301. ISBN 9783161527579

2013

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) La Révolution batave: Entre la France et l’Amérique (1795–1806). By Annie Jourdan. French History, 27(2), pp. 312-313. (doi: 10.1093/fh/crt043)[Book Review]

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) Marc H. Lerner. A Laboratory of Liberty: The Transformation of Political Culture in Republican Switzerland, 1750–1848. American Historical Review, 118(3), pp. 947-948. (doi: 10.1093/ahr/118.3.947)[Book Review]

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) Ursachen, Entwicklung und Erbe einer europäischen Revolution. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 73(7-9), pp. 11-16.

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) 'Complaints lost in the wind'-French India and the crisis of the absolute monarchy: a global dimension? In: Swann, J. and Felix, J. (eds.) The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy: From Old Regime to the French Revolution. Series: Proceedings of the British Academy. Oxford University Press: Corby, UK, pp. 223-243. ISBN 9780197265383

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) The international repercussions of the French revolution. In: McPhee, P. (ed.) A Companion to the French Revolution. John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, UK, pp. 381-396. ISBN 9781444335644

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction. Series: Very short introductions (344). Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK. ISBN 9780199590964

2012

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2012) 1848: European revolutions. In: Isakhan, B. and Stockwell, S. (eds.) The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy. Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, UK, pp. 282-292. ISBN 9780748640751

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2012) The Napoleonic Civil Code: the Belgian case. In: Broers, Michael, Hicks, David and Guimera, Agustin (eds.) The Napoleonic Empire and the New European Political Culture. Series: War, culture and society, 1750–1850. Palgrave Macmillan: London, pp. 1750-1850. ISBN 9781349317035 (doi: 10.1057/9781137271396_9)

2009

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2009) 1848: Year of Revolution. Abacus: London. ISBN 9780349118642

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2009) The Germans are hydrophobes: Germany and the Germans in the Shaping of French identity. In: Forrest, A.I. and Wilson, P.H. (eds.) The Bee and the Eagle: Napoleonic France and the End of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806. Series: War, culture and society, 1750-1850. Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke, UK, pp. 234-255. ISBN 9780230008939

2008

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2008) France. In: Wilson, P.H. (ed.) A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe. Series: Blackwell companions to European history. Blackwell: Malden, MA, USA, pp. 338-353. ISBN 9781405139472

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2008) Loyal catholics and revolutionary patriots: national identity and the Scots in revolutionary Paris. Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, 2(1), pp. 51-71.

2005

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2005) Nineteenth Century Europe. Series: Palgrave history of Europe. Palgrave. ISBN 9780333652459

2000

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2000) Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment of Foreigners 1789-1799. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198208457

This list was generated on Sat Feb 21 23:43:33 2026 GMT.

Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Edited Books

Number of items: 39.

Articles

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2025) The slippery truth of the Dreyfus Affair. BBC History Magazine, pp. 36-41.

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2024) Paris transformed - The Belle Epoque. Good Life France Magazine(39), pp. 106-110.

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2020) The global impact of the Napoleonic Wars. BBC History Magazine,

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2018) 1848: Europe's Year of Revolution. Modern History Review, 20(3),

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2017) Two visions of patriotism yet to be reconciled in Macron's France. Herald, 10 May.

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2016) Alliances and treaties: co-operation in war and peace. EGO: European History Online,

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2013) Ursachen, Entwicklung und Erbe einer europäischen Revolution. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 73(7-9), pp. 11-16.

Books

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2017) Rebel Cities: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution. Little, Brown: London. ISBN 9781408705230

Rapport, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2009) 1848: Year of Revolution. Abacus: London. ISBN 9780349118642

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2005) Nineteenth Century Europe. Series: Palgrave history of Europe. Palgrave. ISBN 9780333652459

Book Sections

Book Reviews

Rapport, Mike ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2023) Once More unto the Barricades. Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848–1849. Literary Review(517), [Book Review]

Rapport, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0541-4475 (2015) Short List: review of four books on the Battle of Waterloo for the New York Times. New York Times Book Review, [Book Review]

Edited Books

This list was generated on Sat Feb 21 23:43:33 2026 GMT.

Grants

2014:
- British Academy: 'The Bricks and Mortar of Revolution: Public Buildings and Spaces in Revolutionary Paris' (for research in the Archives Nationales, Paris).
2012:
- Carnegie Trust: ‘The Black Cockade and the Tricolore: New York City and the French Revolution, 1789-1804’ (for research in the New York City Records, the New York Public Library and the New York Historical Society).
2011:
- Carnegie Trust: ‘Revolutionary Paris’ (for research in the Archives Nationales, Paris).
2009:
- Carnegie Trust: ‘Imperial Armageddon: the French Wars as a Global Struggle’ (for research in the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence).
2004:
- British Academy: ‘Propaganda, Public Opinion and the Napoleonic State: the French Response to Trafalgar and Austerlitz, 1805-6’.
2000:
- British Academy: ‘A Community Apart? The Scots College in Paris during the French Revolution’, to the European Social Sciences History Conference, at the International Institute of Social History, the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, April 2000.
1999:
- British Academy: for research into the French occupation and annexation of Belgium.

Supervision

I am open to supervising PhD and taught postgraduate students on topics related to my research, and am open to suggestions related to any aspect of eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Europe.

I have supervised, or I am currently supervising, PhD students working on the following topics:

Women in the French Revolution
Scottish communities in 18th-century Paris (joint supervision with the Sorbonne)
Bourgeois Women, Taste and Décor during the early Third French Republic, 1871-1914
Emperor Maximilian of Mexico
French travel writers in Scotland, 1780s-1820s
German anarchists in the United States in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
The Greek War of Independence
Equestrianism and the British cavalry in the long eighteenth century
Napoleon's navy
Traumatic brain injury in the Napoleonic Wars

Teaching

I teach across all levels, from pre-Honours to postgraduate.

At pre-Honours, I currently contribute to the second-year course A Social and Cultural History of Modern Europe and, at the same level, to An Introduction to Global History. As the History Subject reforms its undergraduate curriculum, from 2026-27 I will be teaching on the new first-year course on The Disruption of the Modern World.

At Junior Honours (Third Year), I offer a course on France: Nation, Revolution and Empire, 1789-1914. My latest book, City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Époque (London: Bridge Street Press and New York: Basic Books, 2024), is largely drawn from my teaching on this course.

At Senior Honours (Fourth Year), I run a year-long Special Subject on the French Revolution. In the first half, the course looks at events in France in depth. In the second half, we explore the international impact, particularly the French Revolutionary Wars, the experience of occupation and resistance and radical movements in different countries.

At taught postgraduate level, I contribute to the core course Comparative Approaches to Warfare and Violent Conflict on the MSc in War Studies and I offer a course on Thomas Paine as an Enlightenment Revolutionary.

Research datasets

Jump to: 2024

Number of items: 1.

2024

Peacock, T. , Cooper, J., Blyth, C., Watson, P. and Rapport, M. (2024) Revolution 1848: A research-informed educational card game around the 1848 French Revolution – Part of Project AWARE (Access to Wargaming in Education). [Data Collection]

This list was generated on Sat Feb 21 19:54:14 2026 GMT.

Additional information

I have been a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society since 2000, was reviews Editor for the journal, French History (Oxford University Press) between 2001 and 2007 and Secretary of the Society for the Study of French History, in 2000-2006.

I have been an alumnus of the Highlands Forum since 2012.

I have been involved in different forms of public engagement, including talks to cultural and historical organisations, podcasts, newspaper interviews, presentations at book festivals and some radio and some TV and media consultancy and appearances. See, for example:

'The French Revolution: Royal History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley' BBC 2, first broadcast on 6 November 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p3nq.
'The Franco-American Alliance', In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, with Melvyn Bragg, Kathleen Burk and Frank Cogliano, 22 April 2021 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v99n.
'Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow', In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, with Melvyn Bragg, Janet Hartley and Michael Rowe, 19 September 2019 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008jd2.
‘The 1848 Revolutions’, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, with Melvyn Bragg, Tim Blanning and Lucy Riall, 19 January 2012.

Dr Michael Rapport

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School of Humanities | Sgoil nan Daonnachdan

Dr Michael Rapport

Biography

Research interests

Publications

2025

2024

2023

2022

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2009

2008

2005

2000

Articles

Books

Book Sections

Book Reviews

Edited Books

Grants

Supervision

Teaching

Research datasets

2024

Additional information