Famous Durham Academics

Do you want names of famous/influential academics who are researching at Durham or famous/influential academics who were undergraduates at Durham?

The first is unlikely to happen (though not impossible) the second less so....but than any famous/influential academic who did their undergraduate degree at Durham is likely to be known for their research and their current university and not for where they spent the 18-21 period of their life.

I'd be happy with any information at all. I genuinely like such data, and of course I'm always puzzled by the mystery of Durham's status, but I'm open to refutation (Im a fan of Karl Popper), and it may be that I have under-estimated the place, so anything you've got let it rip...

Prof Ranauld (sp?!) Mitchie, world famous finance-historian and head of faculty for the History dept at Durham

Thanks: recommended author-Warren Farrell (see his websites)

Recommended author of what? Financial history?

Claire, is it true that you're going to pick Durham over LSE?

That would be crazy!

It wouldn't be crazy really - apparently the Durham history department if much better, and surely you wana go to a uni with the best department available to you?

You need a mix of many things, like University, department, location, academics etc etc.

In general I think you should aim as high as grades allow, and go to the University that you feel comfortable in. I personally would go for LSE over Durham.

Well if you should aim as high as grades allow then it should definately be Durham over LSE, as Durham ask for AAB-AAA and LSE only ask for ABB

I meant as high as the applicant could achieve. Only ABB?? Oh God, only ABB, because that isn't good is it?

Well it depends on the applicant - if they are a AAA or AAAA applicant then ABB to them will seem very 'easy' to achieve but to people that are predicted lower then they might seem ABB as more difficult to achieve and a much more respectable grade

Nasser Hussain went to Durham, and I believe the BBC's George Alagiah did too, and Mo Molam and Jeremy Vine.

Well if you should aim as high as grades allow then it should definately be Durham over LSE, as Durham ask for AAB-AAA and LSE only ask for ABB

In LSE's case I can think of a few historians at random, spread across different departments, and sometimes I've noted their specialisms (the two named LSE history depts are economic history and international history: Sydney and Beatrice Webb in labour history, RH Tawney, Eileen Power (mediaeval history), Lillian Knowles, Louis Namier, T.S. Ashton (the industrial revolution), James Joll, Lance Beales, Maurice Postan (mediaeval economic history), Paul Preston (Spanish history), plus historical sociologists like Michael Mann and John Hall, and more recently economic historians such as Nicholas Crafts and the 'world historian' Patrick O'Brian, not to mention the celebrated Linda Colley.