William Bulman

Biography

William Bulman (he/him) studies the political, religious, and intellectual history of Britain and its empire in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as the broader global history of majority rule. All of his work centers on the question of how societies respond to difference and disagreement. It employs both humanistic and social-scientific methodologies. Bulman’s first monograph, Anglican Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2015), re-interprets the early Enlightenment, the post-revolutionary Church of England, and the religious politics of later Stuart England and its empire. His second monograph, The Rise of Majority Rule in Early Modern Britain and its Empire (Cambridge, 2021), locates the origins of majority rule in the representative assemblies of early modern Britain and its Atlantic colonies. He is also the co-editor of two other books, God in the Enlightenment (Oxford, 2016) and Political and Religious Practice in the Early Modern British World (Manchester, 2022). Bulman is currently writing a global history of majority rule for a general audience as well as a monograph on debates about majority rule in revolutionary England. He is also conducting interdisciplinary research on the emergence of majority rule and party politics in Britain and its empire while continuing his original line of research on religion and the early Enlightenment.