Benjamin Hopkins

On leave, Fall 2009.

Ben Hopkins is a specialist in modern South Asian history, in particular that of Afghanistan, as well as British imperialism. His research focuses on the role of the colonial state in creating the modern states inhabiting the region. His first book, The Making of Modern Afghanistan, examined the efforts of the British East India Company to construct an Afghan state in the early part of the nineteenth century and provides a corrective to the history of the so-called ‘Great Game.’ He is currently working on a history of the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier, looking at how the British demarcated the ‘Durand Line’ and the mechanisms they used to define and police the frontier. As part of this project, he is co-authoring a book with a colleague at the School of Oriental and African Studies (UK), entitled Fragments of the Frontier: Alternative Geographies of the Afghan frontier (Hurst & Co.: Forthcoming). Prof. Hopkins has lived in the UK for a number of years, graduating from the University of Cambridge with a PhD and holding a post-doctoral research fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Awarded the Senior Rouse Ball Prize from Trinity College for future research based on his 2005 dissertation, his work has also been funded by the Nuffield Foundation (UK), the British Academy, and the American Institute of Iranian Studies. (Complete C.V.)

Selected Publications

The Making of Modern Afghanistan. Cambridge Imperial and Post Colonial Studies Series London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

“Race, Sex and Slavery: ‘Forced Labour’ in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the early 19th century.” Modern Asian Studies 42, no. 2 (2008): 629-71.

“The bounds of identity: the Goldsmid mission and the delineation of the Perso-Afghan border in the 19th century.” Journal of Global History 2, no. 2 (2007): 233-54.

Courses Taught

Hist 38: World History since 1500

Education

Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 2006.