I should like to support Susan Mumm's remarks: consider doing a Ph.D. in
British history in Britain. This is clearly the most successful strategy for
Britons, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans, Indians et
al. aiming to teach British history in their own (or each other's)
countries. A quick scan of the faculty listing in Canada shows that some
two-thirds (or more) of my colleagues received a U.K. doctorate (typically
Cambridge, Oxford or London); very few have doctorates from the U.S.A; and I
expect this habit to continue, not least because when an M.A. student wishes
to proceed to a foreign research degree in British history, it is typical
that they look to the U.K. rather than the U.S. We here have sent a dozen
post-graduate students to Oxbridge in the past 4 years to read British
history, and none to the USA. Call us culturally biased, if you like, but
the costs are similar, while our academic contacts are far stronger, and the
logistics of research are easier, the density and intensity of interactions
with and within the international community of British history scholars are
greater, opportunities for foreign students to win awards in British history
are greater, the degree is highly regarded, so why not?
The question remains: whether US students of British history should
do a Ph.D. in the USA or no? As ever, it depends on individual
circumstances, but equally clearly US students should consider a UK doctoral
degree to be a real and not a fanciful option. I suspect however that at the
root there may well be in US academic British history hiring decisions a
cultural bias AGAINST British Ph.D. degrees -- the obverse of the tendency
that obtains elsewhere. This seems plausibly the case, but the point seems
capable of empirical assessment, and worthy of further exploration.
Julian Martin
Department of History & Classics,
University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB Canada T6G 2H4