Dr James Renton
A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, James obtained his PhD at University College London (UCL) in 2003.
James has held post-doctoral fellowships from the Cecil and Irene Roth Memorial Trust and the Hanadiv Charitable Foundation. He is also an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL. In June 2008, James co-organised with Ben Gidley (Goldsmiths) the conference 'Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Comparisons/Contrasts/Connections', for which he was awarded a grant from the British Academy. He is a co-convenor of the 'Ethnicity, Race, and Racism Seminar'.
James' first book, The Zionist Masquerade: the Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance, 1914-1918 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) re-examined a critical chapter in the history of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, and the British empire in the Middle East. His current research is on the British empire and the idea of the Middle East; and the Palestine Mandate.
Research
- Western imperialism in the Middle East
- The Israel-Palestine conflict
- Zionism
- Arab nationalism
- Antisemitism and Orientalism
Publications
Books
- The Zionist Masquerade: the Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance,1914-1918 (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Articles and Chapters
- Flawed Foundations: The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate', in R. Miller, ed., Palestine, Britain and Empire: The Mandate Years (Ashgate, 2010), pp. 15-37.
- 'Changing Languages of Empire and the Orient: Britain and the Invention of the Middle East, 1917-1918', The Historical Journal, 50, 3 (Sept. 2007), pp. 645-667.
- 'Reconsidering Chaim Weizmann and Moses Gaster in the Founding Mythology of Zionism', in M. Berkowitz, ed., Nationalism, Zionism and Ethnic Mobilization of the Jews c. 1900 (Leiden and New York: Brill, 2004),pp. 129-152.
- The Historiography of the Balfour Declaration: Toward a Multi-Causal Framework', Journal of Israeli History, 19, 2 (Summer 1998), pp. 109 - 128.
Media
- Interpreting the Balfour Declaration: A Marriage of History and Politics?', Teaching History, 143, June 2011
- ‘The Grand Mufti’, Nazi Collaborators, Episode 8, documentary,Yesterday Channel, December 2010 and January 2011
- 'WikiLeaks: Imperial Precedent', front-page article, openDemocracy, 21st December 2010
- On Britain and the Holocaust, Al-Jazeera Television, April 2010
- 'Forgotten Lessons: Palestine and the British Empire', openDemocracy, 19 March 2010.
- 'The Balfour Declaration: Its Origins and Consequences', The Jewish Quarterly (Spring 2008).
- The Balfour Declaration, documentary, Al-Jazeera Television, 2007