Two Professors Honored by Royal Historical Society

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Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, associate professor of history, and Steven M. Sheppard, associate dean for research and development in the School of Law.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon, associate professor of history and the Cleveland C. Burton Professor of International Programs in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, and Steven M. Sheppard, the William H. Enfield Professor and associate dean for research and development in the School of Law, have been elected Fellows of the Royal Historical Society.

“I’m very pleased that the Royal Historical Society chose to recognize professor Sheppard and professor Grob-Fitzgibbon with this honor,” said Sharon Gaber, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “They are an impressive example of many University of Arkansas faculty who use their expertise in diverse fields to enhance the impact of their scholarship through interdisciplinary work.”

Since receiving its Royal Charter from Queen Victoria in 1868, the society has “evolved from a club for scholarly gentlemen to the foremost body in the United Kingdom for those engaged professionally in the study of the past,” according to the Royal Historical Society’s website. Its Fellows are elected by the society’s council following nomination by a current Fellow. Nominees must have demonstrated “an original contribution to historical scholarship in the form of significant published work.”

“It is a great privilege to have been elected a Fellow of the society, and I am very grateful to the current Fellows for doing so,” Grob-Fitzgibbon said. “It is another example of the continuing excellence of this university that two faculty members from two different colleges should have come to the attention of the society, and I am delighted to have been honored in this way alongside Steve Sheppard.”

Grob-Fitzgibbon's nomination and subsequent election follows the publication of his most recent book, Imperial Endgame: Britain's Dirty Wars and the End of Empire. Since its release in May 2011, Imperial Endgame has provoked widespread discussion and has been reviewed in the The Literary Review, BBC History Magazine, History Today, Britain and the World, the English Historical Review, and Twentieth Century British History and other journals.

"I am grateful to the fellowship both for their endorsement of my work and for the invitation to participate in this accomplished, global community of scholars,” said Sheppard. “It is an additional gift to share this honor with Ben, whose careful and innovative writings are redefining our understandings of the meaning of national leadership on the global stage. Our elections are just more proof of the wonderful community that supports this type of research at the University of Arkansas."

Sheppard’s most recent publication is The Bouvier Law Dictionary, a completely rewritten resource based on the first dictionary of American law, containing more than 10,000 terms and phrases in 8,000 entries. Sheppard’s other works include editions of The Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke, Karl Llewellyn’s The Bramble Bush and E. Allan Farnsworth’s An Introduction to the Legal System of the United States. He also wrote with George Fletcher American Law in a Global Context, and in 2009 Cambridge University Press published his I Do Solemnly Swear: The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials.

The Royal Historical Society is based in London, and considers itself “the proudest, and certainly the oldest, guardian of historical scholarship in the country.” The University of Arkansas can now boast two members of the society’s worldwide fellowship. Only six of the other 11 schools in the SEC have faculty members who are Fellows of the Royal Historical Society.