Name: Maxine Berg

Job title: Professor

Department: History

Number of years at Warwick: 40

I came to Warwick in September, 1978 as a lecturer in the Economics Department, later becoming Senior Lecturer, and remained there until 1993, when I transferred to the History Department. I had many happy years in Economics, and was especially influenced there by Alec Ford, Keith Cowling and Mark Harrison. I taught the history of industrialization, the history of the British economy and history of economic thought. These were the years when there was still industry in the West Midlands, and I took groups of students to site visits to firms ranging from Cash’s Name Tapes and Herbert’s Machine Tools to Corby Steel. In 1993 I requested a transfer to the History Department. My interests as an economic historian were by then diverging from the new directions of economics. Changing departments within the same university was an extraordinary thing to do at the time, and probably still is. But the new Vice-Chancellor, Brian Follett, facilitated this.

Coming to the History Department brought new vistas for me, but also challenges. The department welcomed me. I was one of only a few women on the staff; I had been the only one in the Economics Department for eight years. My research and teaching subjects shifted to adapt to a very different groups of students and academics, but I now felt at home working in much earlier historical periods than when I was in Economics. Brian Follett brought new research priorities and strategies to the University, and in 1996, together with Annie Janowitz from the English Department I won the Research Initiatives Competition with ‘The Luxury Project’. The funding and Leverhulme and AHRC Networks that followed brought the new Eighteenth-Century Centre, and five years of popular and immensely pleasurable events, postdocs and PhD students. During this period I became Reader, then Professor and in 2004, Fellow of the British Academy.

In 2006 a new Vice-Chancellor, Sir Nigel Thrift, came to Warwick, and for me it was time for another new direction. The VC and the University supported me in founding another new Research Centre, the Global History and Culture Centre (GHCC), in 2007. I have been much engaged since then in many initiatives including the first ERC Senior Researchers’ Fellowship in the Humanities at Warwick, ‘Europe’s Asian Centuries 1600-1800’ between 2010-14.

Warwick has been a place where I could develop many new initiatives; the senior management was accessible and receptive to new ideas. I have had excellent students and postdocs, and a wonderful small group of collaborative colleagues in the GHCC. I have never been bored. The campus has always been a building site, and I have always thought this was great; it meant things were on the move always. My favourite place, discovered only in these past six years is the bluebell woods in their glory at the start of the summer term.

Enjoyed hearing from Maxine? Hear from some of our other Long Service Award recipients

"Warwick has been a place where I could develop many new initiatives; the senior management was accessible and receptive to new ideas. "