Lizzie Collingham

Lizzie Collingham is a historian interested in linking the minutiae of daily life to the broad sweep of historical processes. Her first book, Imperial Bodies, explored the physical experience of the British raj and the way in which concerns about race and imperialism found expression in debates about physique and diet. Curry: a tale of cooks and conquerors used the history of a particular dish to tell the story of Britain’s relationship with India; The Taste of War: World War II and the battle for food re-examined the Second World War from the perspective of food as a weapon of war.

Having gained a PhD from Cambridge, she taught at Warwick University and was a research fellow at Jesus College Cambridge before becoming an independent writer. She maintains strong links with academia and enjoyed a stint as a visiting fellow at the Australian National University. She is an associate fellow of Warwick University’s history department and a guest lecturer for the MA in creative writing at Madingley Centre for Continuing Education and for an MA in gastronomy at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy. She occasionally writes reviews for the Times Literary Supplement and articles for various non-academic journals and magazines. She wrote the kitchens volume for a project commissioned by the Indian president designed to make his palace (formerly the Viceroy’s House, New Delhi) accessible to the wider public. She is currently working on a food history of the British empire. She writes in a garden shed near Cambridge.