Guy Ortolano

Guy Ortolano

Professor of History & MA Director of Graduate Studies

Education

University of Georgia, BA 1997
Northwestern University, PhD 2005

Areas of Research/Interest

Britain since 1688, urban history, history of science, cultural and intellectual history, historiography, twentieth century, social democracy, neoliberalism, world histories.

BIO

https://www.guyortolano.com/


Prospective graduate students are urged to visit the website of the New York-Cambridge Training Collaboration (NYCTC). With Susan Pedersen of Columbia and Peter Mandler of Cambridge, Ortolano founded and runs this collaborative approach to graduate training in British history between Cambridge, Columbia, and NYU.Guy Ortolano is a cultural and intellectual historian of modern Britain, with interests in urban history and the history of science. He edits the Oxford journal Twentieth Century British History and, with Susan Pedersen of Columbia and Peter Mandler of Cambridge, runs the New York – Cambridge Training Collaboration for PhD students in modern British history (NYCTC). He teaches surveys of British and European history since the eighteenth century, and seminars on urban history, the practice of history, and the history of science. He also offers a survey of multi-ethnic Britain since pre-Roman times for NYU’s Core Curriculum. Ortolano writes about subjects that recently enjoyed wide acclaim, only to have fallen dramatically out of favor: a novelist no longer in print, a literary critic out of fashion, an architecture widely loathed. By recovering the context in which these reputations once thrived, his work challenges some of the most pervasive interpretations of the post-1945 era, from economic “decline” to the 1970s “crisis.” His first book, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature, and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain (Cambridge, 2009), explains how a cliché about intellectual life – that it is divided between “two cultures,” the humanities and sciences – ignited a ferocious debate during the 1960s, as this familiar lament became invested with competing readings of England’s past, the West’s present, and Africa’s future. His second book, Thatcher's Progress: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism through an English New Town (Cambridge, 2019), follows the Prime Minister on a driving tour through the planned city of Milton Keynes - a journey that reveals a dynamic welfare state during the decade of its purported crisis. Ortolano is now working on the ways that British history has figured in conceptions of world history since David Hume; a first installment, on British history and American modernization theory, was named winner of the Walter D. Love Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies. You can read an interview about that article here.
Guy Ortolano is a cultural and intellectual historian of modern Britain, with interests in urban history and the history of science. He edits the Oxford journal Twentieth Century British History and, with Susan Pedersen of Columbia and Peter Mandler of Cambridge, runs the New York – Cambridge Training Collaboration for PhD students in modern British history (NYCTC). He teaches surveys of British and European history since the eighteenth century, and seminars on urban history, the practice of history, and the history of science. He also offers a survey of multi-ethnic Britain since pre-Roman times for NYU’s Core Curriculum. Ortolano writes about subjects that recently enjoyed wide acclaim, only to have fallen dramatically out of favor: a novelist no longer in print, a literary critic out of fashion, an architecture widely loathed. By recovering the context in which these reputations once thrived, his work challenges some of the most pervasive interpretations of the post-1945 era, from economic “decline” to the 1970s “crisis.” His first book, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature, and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain (Cambridge, 2009), explains how a cliché about intellectual life – that it is divided between “two cultures,” the humanities and sciences – ignited a ferocious debate during the 1960s, as this familiar lament became invested with competing readings of England’s past, the West’s present, and Africa’s future. His second book, Thatcher's Progress: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism through an English New Town (Cambridge, 2019), follows the Prime Minister on a driving tour through the planned city of Milton Keynes - a journey that reveals a dynamic welfare state during the decade of its purported crisis. Ortolano is now working on the ways that British history has figured in conceptions of world history since David Hume; a first installment, on British history and American modernization theory, was named winner of the Walter D. Love Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies. You can read an interview about that article here.
Guy Ortolano is a cultural and intellectual historian of modern Britain, with interests in urban history and the history of science. He edits the Oxford journal Twentieth Century British History and, with Susan Pedersen of Columbia and Peter Mandler of Cambridge, runs the New York – Cambridge Training Collaboration for PhD students in modern British history (NYCTC). He teaches surveys of British and European history since the eighteenth century, and seminars on urban history, the practice of history, and the history of science. He also offers a survey of multi-ethnic Britain since pre-Roman times for NYU’s Core Curriculum. Ortolano writes about subjects that recently enjoyed wide acclaim, only to have fallen dramatically out of favor: a novelist no longer in print, a literary critic out of fashion, an architecture widely loathed. By recovering the context in which these reputations once thrived, his work challenges some of the most pervasive interpretations of the post-1945 era, from economic “decline” to the 1970s “crisis.” His first book, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature, and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain (Cambridge, 2009), explains how a cliché about intellectual life – that it is divided between “two cultures,” the humanities and sciences – ignited a ferocious debate during the 1960s, as this familiar lament became invested with competing readings of England’s past, the West’s present, and Africa’s future. His second book, Thatcher's Progress: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism through an English New Town (Cambridge, 2019), follows the Prime Minister on a driving tour through the planned city of Milton Keynes - a journey that reveals a dynamic welfare state during the decade of its purported crisis. Ortolano is now working on the ways that British history has figured in conceptions of world history since David Hume; a first installment, on British history and American modernization theory, was named winner of the Walter D. Love Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies. You can read an interview about that article here.

Fellowships/Honors

Astor Visiting Lecturer, Oxford University (2018).

Golden Dozen Teaching Award, NYU College of Arts and Science (2018).

ACLS, Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship (2012-2013).

St John's College, Oxford University, Invited Visiting Scholar (2012).

American Philosophical Society, Franklin Grant (2011).

American Historical Association, Bernadotte Schmitt Research Grant (2009).

Cornell University, Society for the Humanities (2007-2008).

University of Texas, Harry Ransom Center, British Studies Fellowship (2006).

Northwestern University, Harold Perkin Dissertation Prize (2005).

Northwestern University, Society of Fellows (2003-2005).

Josephine de Karman Dissertation Fellowship (2002-2003).

 

Books

Articles

“Begrudging Neoliberalism," The Neoliberal Age?  Politics, Society, Economy, and Culture in Twentieth Century Britain, eds. Aled Davies, Ben Jackson, and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite (UCL Press, forthcoming).

"Breaking Ranks: C. P. Snow and the Crisis of Mid-Century Liberalism, 1930-1980," Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 41:2-3 (2016): 118-132.

"The Typicalities of the English? Walt Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth, and Modern British History," Modern Intellectual History 12 (November 2015): 657-684. Winner of the Walter D. Love Prize.

“Planning the Urban Future in 1960s Britain,” The Historical Journal 54:2 (2011): 477-507, featured in the August 2011 issue of the BBC History Magazine, and named Honorable Mention for the Walter D. Love Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies.

“Decline’ as a Weapon in Cultural Politics,” Penultimate Adventures with Britannia, ed. Wm. Roger Louis (London: I. B. Tauris, 2008), pp. 201-214.

“The Literature and the Science of ‘Two Cultures’ Historiography,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 39 (2008): 143-150.

“F. R. Leavis, Science, and the Abiding Crisis of Modern Civilization,” History of Science 43 (2005): 161-185.

“Human Science or a Human Face?  Social History and the ‘Two Cultures’ Controversy,” Journal of British Studies 43 (2004): 482-505, runner-up for the Ivan Slade Prize from the British Society for the History of Science, awarded to the "best critical contribution to the history or historiography of science/technology/medicine" over a two-year period.
Two Cultures, One University,” Albion 34 (2002): 606-624.

“The Role of Dorcas in ‘Roger Malvin’s Burial’,” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 25 (1999): 8-16. Reprinted in Short Story Criticism, vol. 190, ed. Lawrence J. Trudean (New York, 2014).

Book Reviews

Cercles, Cultural and Social History, English Historical Review, European Legacy, H-Net, Isis, Journal of British Studies, Journal of Contemporary History, Journal of Modern History, Planning Perspectives, Reviews in History, Twentieth Century British History, Urban History.