He is Professor of Modern History and Director of the Royal Holloway Holocaust Research Institute, University of London. He received his BA and DPhil at Oxford University; He has also served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and has taught at Royal Holloway since 1999. He is a historian of modern Europe with a special interest in the Holocaust, genocide, fascism, terrorism and terrorism. The history of the idea of "race" and the theory of history.