Jeff Fynn-Paul

Jeff Fynn-Paul
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Born	(1972-06-05) June 5, 1972 Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Occupation	Economic Historian Senior University Lecturer

Jeff Fynn-Paul, Ph.D. (born 5 June 1972) is an American economic historian and senior university lecturer, who teaches at Leiden University in the Netherlands, in the departments of International Studies, Urban Studies, and Economic History.

Early life and education

Fynn-Paul was born in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. His maternal grandfather Larry A. Finn was a naval flight instructor, who later became one of the U.S. Navy’s first helicopter pilots. His father John W. Paul was an officer on the carrier U.S.S. Saratoga. Both men were associated with the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville. Fynn-Paul grew up in Bethlehem, PA, USA, where both of his parents worked at Lehigh University for many years. He attended Freedom High School, graduating in the same class as Dwayne the Rock Johnson. He did a broad liberal arts education at Lehigh University, including a year abroad at the University of York, UK. He received his Master’s and PhD degrees from the University of Toronto in Canada, under Mark Meyerson (Centre for Medieval Studies) and John H. Munro (Department of Economics). His external reader was Paul Freedman (History, Yale).

Academic career

Research

His research focuses on global slavery and global economic history, with a specialisation in late medieval Spain and the Spanish Empire. Fynn-Paul has published academic books with Cambridge University Press, Routledge and Brill, and contributed to high-profile multi-author works such as the Cambridge World History of Slavery and An Economic History of the Iberian Peninsula, 700-2000. He co-founded the book series Studies in Global Slavery (with Damian Pargas).

He has published in journals such as Past & Present, Urban History, and the European History Quarterly; and is an an area editor for the Journal of Global Slavery.

In August 2017, the Catalan version of Fynn-Paul's book The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie was presented in a public ceremony at Manresa, Spain, organised by the Centre d'Estudis del Bages. This was accompanied by a regional media campaign to publicise the event. In a review, Thomas W. Barton notes: Fynn-Paul's deep understanding of the key historiographical patterns and debates over the past generations enhances his ability to integrate Manresa's case into the economic and political landscape of the Crown of Aragon, and then to compare that scenario with the broader European narrative. (…) I suspect that Fynn-Paul’s book will become a model study that will shape future work on medieval urban history. His diligence in capitalising on this underutilised treasure trove of documentation will surely influence the ongoing scholarly conversation regarding the broad political and economic trends of the later Middle Ages. …It is fair to say that no-one interested in Iberian or southern European urban history in future will be able to afford to overlook this book.

Another review describes the book as giving a portrait of a city that was at its most vibrant in times when class was least calcified, and when the wealthy were most engaged with civic life. (...) a welcome contribution to the literature on the cities of the medieval Mediterranean, and will be illuminating reading to medieval historians working well beyond the borders of Iberia.

In 2021, Fynn-Paul was named to a Dutch parliamentary committee researching historical Dutch connections with slavery.

Teaching

Fynn-Paul teaches large “arena-style” classes of over 500 students at Leiden University, which is ranked among the top International Relations schools in Europe.

He is the first Leiden faculty member to have been honoured, in 2019, by the Leiden International Studies’ Student Association (BASIS), with a hoodie (The Jeff) featuring his trademark glasses and goatee. On another occasion, a student drew a sympathetic cartoon of Fynn-Paul lecturing as a rapper for the BAIS student magazine.

Viral article

In September 2020, his article The Myth of the Stolen Country in the UK-based The Spectator magazine went globally viral. It has since been reprinted several times. In the article, Fynn-Paul maintains that: What the Europeans did in the New World was insert themselves into a fluid power struggle which had been ongoing for millennia. Following the publication of the article, Fynn-Paul appeared on the Michael Medved Show, Seán Moncrieff's Moncrieff Show on the national independent radio station Newstalk, and the Spectator Out Loud and Americano podcasts. He was subsequently offered a book deal with Post Hill Press (distributed by Simon & Schuster).

Controversy

Although claising to be a political centrist, Fynn-Paul has been the subject of criticism by high-profile genocide studies scholars. Critics have accused him of being apologists for genocide and enablers of systemic racism. Fynn-Paul vehemently denies these charges, maintaining that his arguments empower people to look at other causes of inequality rather than accepting racism as a monocausal explanation.

In August 2021, Fynn-Paul was invited to be one of the founding members of History Reclaimed, a group of UK-based professional historians which claims that history is being abused for political purposes” and that “culture wars... seem to be aimed squarely at demoralizing Western countries. Fynn-Paul was invited by the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad to explain the History Reclaimed mission. In that piece, Fynn-Paul argues that diversity of viewpoints and criticism of the West is healthy, good, and central to scientific history. The problem, he claims, is that many academics now reject any argument that does not make European institutions — including democracy itself — look as bad as possible. This, he says, is unscientific and dangerous to the global progress of human rights.

Other

Fynn-Paul is an avid online gamer and has been active in several gaming clans. In 2020, he was voted player of the year in a players’ poll for a well-known AAA game.

Selected Bibliography

• Fynn-Paul, J. Slavery/Slave Trade, 1350-1650. In Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation. Ed. Margaret King. New York: Oxford University Press; forthcoming

• Fynn-Paul, J. The analysis of large social systems in global history: a methodological approach. Revista de História Comparada 13.1 (2019): 13-44.

• Fynn-Paul, J. The Land Commenda in the Late Medieval Crown of Aragon and the Rise of a 'Democratic' Investment Culture. TSEG/ Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History 14:3 (2017), 85–107.

• Fynn-Paul, J. Longevity, Identity, and Networks amongst Catalan Urban Families in the Long Fourteenth Century (ca. 1250-1450): The Case of Manresa, in Jesús Ángel Solórzano Telechea, Jelle Haemers, and Christian Liddy, eds. La familia urbana: matrimonio, parentesco y linaje en la Edad Media. Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2021.

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