I’m a writer and historian. I began my career at Future Publishing writing about videogames and new technology before working at The Guardian and The Times.
After working as a Strategic Communications Advisor to the UK government, I became interested in the history and changing practices of public relations and propaganda. Since then, I have been involved in a wide range of applied research projects across the world, including at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, the University of Cambridge, and the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study.
As a public historian I’ve worked on a wide variety of popular shows, TV programmes, seasons, exhibitions, and events for organisations such as the Science Museum, the British Film Institute, the National Library Board of Singapore, and the National Gallery of Singapore. I’ve also taught at the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, and Cambridge in the UK, as well as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
I’ve been writer-in-residence at the Stacion Center for Contemporary Art in Prishtina, a keynote speaker at the Guanghzhou Film Festival, and a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University, The Constitution Society, and at the Indonesian Visual Art Archive.
As a freelancer I’ve written for a wide range of international publications including Air Mail, The BBC, The Guardian, The Spectator, The New Statesman, The South China Morning Post and The Straits Times. Under my own name, as well as a number of pseudonyms, I’ve also published poetry, stories, and a novel with Penguin.
I’m not on any social media but I will be launching two new sites to log the progress of some major new projects later in 2023. Watch this space.