Colin Holmes (British historian)

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Colin Holmes (b. 1938) is a British author, scholar, and historian.

Colin Holmes completed his MA in history at The University of Nottingham in 1964, submitting a dissertation titled The life and work of H. S. Tremenheere.

He was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Sheffield in the now defunct Department of Economic and Social History under the headship of Sidney Pollard. During the 1970s the two worked closely on producing several volumes of documents covering European Economic History in the modern period.

Howwever, Holmes is best known for his work on anti-Semitism and migration. His book on Anti-Semitism in British Society 1876-1939 was published in 1979 by Edward Arnold and proved to be an inspiration for the growth of research into the area of fascism and antisemitism in the interwar period. Holmes has also written influential articles on the British editions of the notorious Protocols of Zion.

In 1988 his work on immigration to Britain was published by Macmillan. John Bulls Island: Immigration and British Society 1871-1971 is a wide ranging study of the main groups of immigrants that have entered Britain and the impact that they have had on British society. A further study was published by Faber & Faber in 1991, A Tolerant Country? Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities in Britain.

As well as his influential writings, Holmes made a major contribution to the study of fascism and minorities in Britain through his supervision of a number of historians of these fields. Professors Tony Kushner (University of Southampton) and Barbara Bush (Sheffield Hallam University) and Drs David Mayall (Sheffield Hallam University), David Renton and Ken Lunn are amongst those that have benefited from Holmes' guiding hand.

Holmes retired from The University of Sheffield in the late nineties, though he still continued undertaking his research into the subjects close to his heart. His long awaited work on William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) has been long overdue.

Professor Holmes currently serves as editor of the influential journal Immigrants and Minorities, of which he was the founding editor in 1981.