1. Robert Paul Tombs was born on 8 May 1949 and is a British historian of France.
14 Facts About Robert Tombs
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Robert Tombs is professor emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
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Robert Tombs was educated at St Chad's College for Boys, Wolverhampton, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read history.
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Robert Tombs stayed on at Cambridge to complete a PhD in modern French history, conducting much of his research in France, and graduated in 1978 with a thesis on the response of the French state to the Paris Commune in 1871.
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Robert Tombs was then appointed a fellow of St John's and awarded a junior lectureship in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge.
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Robert Tombs has since held various Faculty and College posts, and served as co-editor of The Historical Journal.
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Robert Tombs's speciality is 19th-century France, focusing primarily on the political culture of the working classes.
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In 2006, along with his wife, Robert Tombs wrote That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present, a history of the relationship between Britain and France.
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In 2014, Robert Tombs published The English and Their History, which was widely reviewed by the popular press.
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Robert Tombs's retirement was announced in August 2016, after which he became professor emeritus.
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Robert Tombs is a dual national, holding British and French citizenship.
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Robert Tombs's wife Isabelle Tombs was born in France, and is in charge of French training at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
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Robert Tombs is co-editor of Briefings for Brexit, a consortium of academics and educators who support Brexit, and has written columns for newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, and The Times.
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In November 2021, Robert Tombs expressed strong support for the retention of the English Wikipedia article "Mass killings under communist regimes", then facing the prospect of deletion on neutrality and original research grounds.