Caroline Ritter

Caroline Ritter is a historian of modern imperial Britain and the British Empire. Her research centers around modern Britain and its global relationships, with particular focus on decolonization, language, and media. She joined the University of Maryland in 2025 as an assistant professor of history and public policy. 

Her first book, Imperial Encore: The Cultural Project of the Late British Empire (University of California Press, 2021), examines the history of British cultural relations in Africa during the twentieth century. The study, which is based on archival research in Britain, Kenya, Ghana, and the United States, looks closely at the activities of well-known British institutions such as the BBC, the British Council, and private publishing firms during the half century that spanned the late colonial period, the end of British colonial rule, and the outset of African national rule. By tracing these institutions and the media they produced through the period of decolonization and its aftermath, the book accounts for the global footprint of British cultural imperialism that lasts into the present day. In 2022, the book was shortlisted for the Stansky Book Prize in British Studies since 1800 (awarded by the North American Conference on British Studies).

Dr. Ritter’s current research centers on the dynamics of British decolonization and its role in contemporary global relationships. She is currently working on a book project titled Language Lessons: The English Language Teaching Industry in Britain that examines the array of British and overseas industries that grew around English-language teaching (sometimes referred to as ELT or ESOL) and the associated effects they had on British economic, immigration, and security policies since 1945.

Dr. Ritter received her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015, and her B.A. in History from Swarthmore College in 2006. Before coming to Maryland, she taught at Texas State University for ten years.