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Holly Swenson

British History Postdoctoral Fellow

Ph.D., Northwestern University, 2024
Curriculum Vitae

Interests

Geographic Field(s):  Global History; Modern European History: Britain and Its Empire

Thematic Field(s):  Colonial, Imperial, & Diasporic History

Principal Research Interest(s):  Business and entrepreneurship history, Media history

Biography

Holly Swenson is a historian of modern Britain and the British empire, with particular interests in media and business history. Her research explores how the export of British media shaped cultural life and political economy on a transnational scale in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her book manuscript, "The Business of Culture in the British World," argues that Britain’s white settler colonies became and then remained saturated with British media due to the actions of media entrepreneurs and those actions’ path dependent consequences. The manuscript draws on evidence for media production, distribution, and reception to explain how cultural globalization takes place and why it seems so difficult to reverse. Her dissertation has been distinguished by the Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, Association of Business Historians, Business History Conference, and American Journalism Historians Association. Her work has been supported by Harvard Business School, the University of Glasgow Library, the University of Western Australia, the National Archives of Australia and Australian Historical Society, the Midwest Victorian Studies Association, and the Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern.

Publications

 Teaching interests

  • Modern British, British Imperial, and British World History
  • Modern European and European Imperial History
  • Media History
  • Business and Economic History