He is Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Edmund Hall.
He was elected to a junior research fellowship at St Edmund Hall and a Darby fellowship at Lincoln College before becoming a tutorial fellow at St Edmund Hall in 1992 following the retirement of H. E. J.
[2] Priestland's research focuses on the history of the Soviet Union and the development of communism and neoliberalism.
Priestland's main argument is that humanity has shifted from societies oriented towards a warrior-class, through periods of sage dominance into a modern hegemony of merchants, which has culminated in dominance by businesspeople and entrepreneurs.
[7][8] However, Sir Richard Evans, former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, comments in The Guardian that 'among the many contributions to the dissection of our current predicament, this is surely one of the most-thought provoking'.