Dr Jon Chandler

Jon Chandler is an Associate Professor (Teaching) in History. He is a historian of the eighteenth-century Atlantic World with a particular interest in the impact of war on politics, society, and economy. He is also interested in history education and especially the use of technology in higher education.

Jon re-joined UCL from Westminster College, Missouri, where he was the Fulbright Robertson Visiting Professor of British History. He has also taught at Brunel University and Queen Mary University of London.

Major publications

• The Schlager Anthology of the American Revolution (Schlager, 2021).
• ‘The Continental Army and Military Europe: Professionalism and Restraint in the American War of Independence,’ War in History (2020).
• War, Patriotism and Identity in Revolutionary North America (Boydell and Brewer, 2020).
• '"To Become Again our Brethren": Desertion and Community during the American War of Independence', Historical Research 90 (2017), 363-380.

For a full list of publications, see Jon's Iris profile.

Media appearances/public engagement

Jon regularly engages the public with his research, with events including a Fulbright Endcap talk at the University of Edinburgh and a musical inspired by the End of History at the Tristan Bates Theatre, London.

He is also a strong supporter of widening participation in higher education, and particularly in the humanities. He has collaborated with colleagues across the sector to organise numerous summer schools, conferences, and lectures on topics including:

• George Washington: Man and Myth
• Has History Speeded Up?
• Riots, Rebellions, and Revolutions

Teaching

• Making History (first-year undergraduate core course)
• Writing History (first-year undergraduate core course)
• Approaching History (first-year undergraduate core course)
• Britain and the American Colonies, 1760-1776 (third-year special subject) 

PhD supervision

Jon welcomes enquires from students interested in researching any aspect of the American Revolution and its aftermath in Britain, North America, and Continental Europe. He has broader interests in histories of war and its impact on societies, politics, and cultures in the early modern Atlantic World.  

Current supervisees: Marvin Münsch, ‘Anglo-Prussian Relations during the American Revolutionary War, 1775 – 1783’; Becca Palmer, ‘In the “Little Spheres” of the Empire: A conceptual analysis of provincial political thought during the American Revolution’; Sadie Sunderland-Rhoads, ‘Patriots or Paychecks? Irish Catholic recruitment into the British Army for service during the American Revolution’.

Recently completed: Darren Reid, ‘Indigenous and Settler Correspondence with the Aborigines' Protection Society: Negotiating Imperialism from within Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand, 1850-1900’ (2023).