Rory Cox

Dr Rory Cox is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in History at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he has been teaching since 2011. Previous to his current appointment, he taught at Aberystwyth University and the University of Oxford. Rory received his Bachelor’s degree in Ancient History with First Class Honours from University College London (UCL) in 2004, followed by a Master’s in Medieval Studies in 2006, also from UCL, where he graduated with Distinction. He completed a D.Phil in History at the University of Oxford in 2010.

He is a world-leading authority on the global history of war, violence, and ethics, from the ancient to the modern world. His research straddles the fields of History and International Relations, and he has published on subjects as diverse as ancient Egyptian ethics of war, medieval European pacifism, pre-modern and modern torture debates, interdisciplinary methodologies, and global terrorism.

His first book Solar: A History of Humanity and the Sun will be published by Penguin in 2026.