An aerial view of Singleton Campus and the bay opposite
Dr Christoph Laucht

Dr Christoph Laucht

Associate Professor, History

Email address

Office - 110
First Floor
James Callaghan
Singleton Campus
Available For Postgraduate Supervision

About

After studying at the Universities of Kiel (Germany) and Arizona (USA) for my undergraduate degree, I received my MA from the University of New Mexico (USA) in 2005 and my PhD from the University of Liverpool in 2009. Before joining Swansea University in 2013, I worked at Liverpool and Leeds Universities.

I am a historian of post-1945 Western Europe (especially Britain and West Germany) and the United States. My interests lie in historical peace and conflict research; film, television and history; the cultural and social history of the Cold War; as well as in British-German relations. In my research, I commonly use transnational and comparative approaches that go beyond national boundaries.

My first book, Elemental Germans: Klaus Fuchs, Rudolf Peierls and the Making of British Nuclear Culture, 1939-59 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) explored the reciprocal influence of science on society, culture and politics in Britain in the Second World War and the early Cold War. I recently completed a project on transnational medical professional activism, funded by the Wellcome Trust, and am presently finishing my second book (Playing with Uncertainty: Britain and the Nuclear Threat in the Second Cold War, 1979-85; under contract with Oxford University Press). This examines the ways in which different actors – the state, political and social activists, scientific experts and popular media – dealt with the uncertainty over the anticipated effects of nuclear war at a time of heightened superpower tensions.

I am currently also working on two further projects:

The first one deals with town twinning and European reconstruction and reconciliation after 1945. Alongside a co-edited volume on European town twinning, reconstruction and reconciliation more widely (with Dr Tom Allbeson, Cardiff University), I have started work on a book-length study of German-British town twinning and the limits of European reconciliation.

I am also beginning a new long-term research project on the militarization of European societies post 1945 that forms part of an international research network.

In addition, I maintain my research interest in film, television and history.

Areas Of Expertise

  • Modern Britain, Germany and the United States
  • Cultural and Social History
  • Transnational History
  • Historical Peace and Conflict Research
  • Film, TV and History
  • The Cold War
  • The Nuclear Age
  • British-German Relations