Paddy Docherty

Paddy Docherty is a historian of empire, with a particular interest in the British Empire, anticolonial resistance, and the cultural impact of imperialism. Born in Scotland, he grew up in Gloucestershire and was educated at Oxford University, where he was also Junior Dean of Brasenose College and won a Blue for boxing.

His first book was The Khyber Pass: a History of Empire and Invasion (Faber & Faber, 2007), which was a Financial Times Book of the Year in 2007 and was shortlisted for the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award 2008. The US edition was published by Union Square Press in 2008, the Italian edition by Il Saggiatore in 2010, and the Pakistani edition by OUP.

His forthcoming book Blood and Bronze, about the British invasion of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897, will be published by Hurst Publishers in December 2021.