Steven Pincus

Steven Pincus is a Bradford Durfee Professor of History at Yale University, where he specializes in 17th- and 18th-century British and European history. He is also the Chair of Yale's Council on European Studies.

In 1990, Pincus received a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He is a prominent scholar of Early Modern British history, and his work has focused on the 17th century, in particular the Glorious Revolution and English foreign policy. His book 1688: The First Modern Revolution has been praised as providing "a new understanding of the origins of the modern, liberal state."The Economist named it as one of the best books on history published in 2009. Professor Mark Knights called it "brilliant and provocative," for Pincus argues the revolution of 1688 was the first modern revolution. 1688 was violent and divisive; it represented not a coup or invasion but a popular rejection of the king's absolutist modernisation based on the French Catholic model. The Revolution, Pincus argues, expressed an Anglo-Dutch emphasis on consent of the governed, toleration of different forms of Protestantism, free debate and free commerce.

In March 2010 he delivered the Sir John Neale lecture at University College, London. He was in Oxford for the 2010-2011 academic year working on the origins of the British Empire.

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