My recent publications include:

Books

  • “This well-researched romp through the history of the capital’s private members’ clubs overturns many myths along the way…Compendious and entertaining, Behind Closed Doors is the result of thorough research, lightly worn. Thévoz writes with energy, conviction and amusement at the ever-changing variety of human congregation and its foibles.” Financial Times

    “Hugely entertaining and full of stuff I didn't know I wanted to know, but I now do know, and I'm delighted by it.” Jonathan Lynn, co-author of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister

    “Thévoz…offers much more than tales of delicious eccentricity, pink gins or popping monocles. He’s a serious researcher, and offers a lively, exhaustively comprehensive, soup-to-cigars history of this cosy but often corrupt institution.” Sunday Times

    “Thévoz…is clearly a brilliant researcher. He is very good on the history of clubs and the buildings that house them. As for what went on behind those closed doors, there are riveting snippets between great chunks of earnest fact.” Anne de Courcy, Daily Telegraph

    “A lively and comprehensive study of London clubs…entertainingly readable and well-researched”, The Observer

    “Riveting…despite the vastness of its ambition, Behind Closed Doors serves as a well-researched one-stop introduction to the complex social history of the club.” The Spectator

    “Exuberant, rollicking…Behind Closed Doors is full of amusing anecdotes and waspish character sketches…Thévoz, who is the librarian of the National Liberal Club, clearly knows at first hand what has been going on behind the “closed doors” of his title.” Times Literary Supplement

    “[A] secretive world of arcane rules, unbelievable anecdotes and disreputable behaviour…To have a guide to this world - someone who can sail through the ‘haughty frigidity’… - is indispensable.” The Times

    “A fair-minded overview of three hundred years of club history, neatly researched and quite fact-heavy, but overwhelmingly preoccupied with carnal and financial appetites.” Jonathan Parry, London Review of Books

    “Superb”, Peter Oborne, Byline Times

    “Highly knowledgeable”, The Week

    “It’s a very interesting book indeed.” Michael Portillo, Times Radio

    “Utterly fascinating”, Dr Kate Lister, Betwixt the Sheets podcast, HistoryHit

    “A splendid new tome.” The Chap

    “Entertaining and adeptly written” Current Archaeology

    “The definitive book on clubland.” L’Officiel

    “This week we’re loving Behind Closed Doors.” The People’s Friend

    “Keen to debunk myths...Startling…Thévoz gleefully punctures the notion that clubs were a male bastion.” Air Mail

    “This brilliant book…It is EXTREMELY timely, well told and glorious fun. 10/10”, Dr Fern Riddell

    “Very good”, Dr Tim Stanley

    “Very much enjoying this splendid volume”, Ben Schott

    “Superb…finished it in two evenings…Impressively wide-ranging and deeply analytical.” David Palfreyman, author of London’s Pall Mall Clubs (2019).

    “Most enjoyable…gave me just exactly the background to the London clubs which I needed.” Malcolm Shifrin, author of Victorian Turkish Baths (2015).

    “Admirably broad reach…does a great job of demythologising.” Lesley A. Hall

    “Fab”, Prof Tim Bale, Queen Mary University of London

    “Seth Alexander Thévoz is a wonderful, impressively well-informed tour guide, leading you past the heavily guarded Porter’s Lodge into the vaulted halls of clubland…meticulous…genuinely hilarious” Buzz magazine

    “A great read - rich in evidence and robust in analysis. And full of stories told with dry wit.” Dr Matt Cole, University of Birmingham

    “I enjoyed it greatly! It is a remarkable collection of history, anecdote and reference and I'm baffled at how you had any time to eat or sleep whilst researching all the material!” Michael Meadowcroft, former Liberal MP

    “An excellent book.” Alexander Larman

    “Equal parts entertaining and intriguing” Hatchards bookshop, Piccadilly

    One of the “10 Best Books of the Year” Heywood Hill bookshop, Mayfair

    Further coverage in The Guardian, The Times (1st time and 2nd time), and Private Eye.

  • Shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society’s 2019 Whitfield Prize, for the best book on British or Irish history by a first-time solo author. The judges noted the shortlist comprised, “rigorous and innovative works of historical research, many of which will endure among classic studies in their fields“.

    “A fascinating forensic study of the period’s networks of power." Ian Hislop, Editor, Private Eye

    “We are in Seth Thévoz's debt for this splendid book, at once a scholarly work and an insider's account.” Prof Eugenio Biagini, Cambridge University

    “Presenting a wealth of new evidence, he has produced a tour de force of scholarship.” Dr Piers Brendon, author, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (2007)

    “Skilful presentation as well as uniquely well-informed content” Sir Peter Newsam, former Director of the Institute of Education, London University

    “Magisterial” Dr Sunny Singh, Chair of the Authors’ Club and novelist

    "Seth Thévoz has undertaken the most comprehensive and rational analysis of the part clubs played and how they were enabled to do so. He has demystified some of the aura that Trollope and Disraeli tried to create around clubland." Journal of Liberal History

    “Dr Thévoz's scholarly and readable book is an outstanding and important contribution to our understanding of politics in nineteenth century Britain.” Sherlock Holmes Journal

    “Compelling and detailed” David Palfreyman, London's Pall Mall Clubs (Oxford, 2019)

    “Provides important new insights into the political impact of London’s clubs.” Dr Kathryn Rix, History of Parliament Trust

    “[An] important book” Prof Rohan McWilliam, London Journal

    “Excellent…a carefully sourced study…It’s an easy and educative read from someone who not only researches (and then writes) well, but whose understanding of what drives politicians to do what they do is weaved throughout the book.” Liberator.

I have also served as a research assistant on seven books, most recently Will Hutton, This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain (London: Apollo/Bloomsbury, 2024), and including the #1 bestseller Prannoy Roy and Dorab R. Sopariwala, The Verdict: Decoding India’s Elections (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2019), and Michael Crick, Sultan of Swing: The Life of David Butler (London: Biteback, 2018). Further details of these books (including reviews, and author testimonials on my input) can be found on my “Editorial“ page.

Book Chapters

  • “Enlightening“ Ian Robertson, British Art Journal, 14:3 (2013/4), p. 121.

    [The chapter is] “rather amazing . . . Seth Thévoz, not a member [of Brooks’s] but a student of the political significance of clubs in the 19th century, provides a good statistical analysis of the heyday of the Whig party in the aftermath of the Reform Bill, during which the aristocratic dominance of the Whigs was gradually transmogrified into a broader liberalism.” The Spectator.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles - Published/Accepted

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles - In Preparation/ In Peer Review

  • “Defeat in Dundee: Winston Churchill and the 1922 general election” (forthcoming article,).

  • (co-written with Alec Corio) “Defending the Protestant principles of the constitution: the National Club, 1845-55” (forthcoming article).

  • “Local Political Clubs and Constituency Electoral Politics, 1885-1910” (forthcoming article co-written with Luke Blaxill, research still in progress).

Reviews

Pamphlets

  • “Like everything he [Thévoz] writes, it is worth reading.“ Jonathan Calder, Liberal England.

(Coverage in The Guardian.)

Theses

Bibliographies

Journalism

“Brilliant” Politico Influence

(Story picked up by the Independent and City AM.)

(Column picked up on the Natasha Devon programme on LBC radio.)

Coverage in BBC News, ConservativeHome, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Evening Standard (1st and 2nd story), GB News, The Guardian, The Herald, Independent, iNews, LabourList, Mail on Sunday, Metro (1st and 2nd story), The National (1st, 2nd and 3rd story), Newsnight, Observer, Sky News (1st and 2nd story), The Scotsman, Sunday Mirror, The Times, and Wales Online.

Cited in Hansard.

“a detailed, well evidence article”, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, i News.

“Headline of the day.” Jim Pickard, Chief Political Correspondent, Financial Times.

(Story picked up by the Daily Mail and The National.)

“A fine piece”, Prof John Naughton, The Guardian.

(Subsequently shortlisted by the Press Gazette for the 2020 British Journalism Awards, in the “Best Investigation“ category.)

(Coverage in The Independent.)

(Coverage in The Guardian and the Daily Mirror.)

(Coverage in The Times of London, and Business Insider.)

(Coverage in the Daily Telegraph.)

"very interesting...It’s worth reading the whole thing...helps to explode the myth that so many seats were lost because the Tories persuaded huge numbers of Lib Dem voters to switch." Nick Barlow, What You Can Get Away With

(Coverage in The Independent.)

It has also been rumoured that I have been known to contribute to Private Eye in some capacity or another. Allegedly. Probably from around the mid-2010s onwards. There are excellent legal reasons why the Eye never offers up named bylines on individual articles.

Edited Pamphlets

From 2015-2017, I was also Editor of the 'Long Reads' pamphlet series run by the Social Liberal Forum:

Wider impact

My work has been cited in Air Mail, Archaeology Today, Australian Journal of Political Science, Baker Street Journal, BBC News website, British Art Journal, British Journal of Healthcare Management, British Politics, Buzz, Buzzfeed, Byline Times, Canadian Journal of History, Chap, CityAM, Conservative History Journal, ConservativeHome, Country Life, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Economic History Review, Economic Times of India, Economist, Enterprise & Society, Études Anglaises, Evening Standard, Femmes d'Aujourd'hui, Fence, Ferret, Financial Times, Global Food History, Guardian, Hansard, Hello!, Herald Scotland, Historical Journal, HIstorical Research, History News Network, History Today, Huffington Post, iNews, Independent, Indian Historical Review, Insider, Journal of Criminal Law, Journal of Liberal History, Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, Journal of Politics, Journal of Romanian Literary Studies, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, LabourList, Lady, Liberator, London Journal, London Review of Books, Management & Organizational History, Metro, Le Monde, National, Observer, L’Official, Oldie, Pakistan Journal of Criminology, People's Friend, Perspective, Policy Quarterly, Political Studies, Press Gazette, Private Eye. L’Est Républicain, Scotsman, Scottish Historical Review, Sherlock Holmes Journal, Society, Spectator, Sphere, Der Spiegel, The Sun, Sunday Times, Tatler, The Times, Times Literary Supplement, Urban History, Varsity, Wales Online and the Week; plus across dozens of books, pamphlets and PhD theses.