Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Essex, John Walter mainly carries out research in the fields of popular political culture and the politics of the crowd in early modern society. He has been described by Tim Harris as 'the finest social historian of crowd action and popular politics in early modern England'. Walter's publications include Understanding Popular Violence in the English Revolution, which was awarded the 1999 Royal Historical Society Whitfield Prize, and a collection of essays entitled Crowds and Popular Politics in Early Modern England. He has contributed to radio and television documentaries, and articles of his have inspired both an award-winning beer and a recent film (Robinson in Ruins, Patrick Keiller, 2010).