Dr. Robin Ganev

Biography

Robin Ganev is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Regina, where she has taught since 2006. She specializes in eighteenth-century British social history, particularly focusing on popular ballads and popular protest. Dr. Ganev teaches courses on early modern and modern Britain, the history of the British Empire, and Russian history. Her recent research has focused on the ballads reflecting attitudes towards charity in the decades leading up to the New Poor Law of 1834, as well as the ballads protesting commodity taxation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Current research projects explore the question of public opposition toward taxes and tax collectors during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, considering how seventeenth-century English taxpayers were reluctant to accept new taxes, which played a significant role in events leading to the Civil War. The eighteenth century marks a time when the state became more efficient in taxing the population and enforcing the law, thus indicating a shift in how taxes were perceived as legitimate. Her work suggests considerable anger and resistance whenever new taxes were levied, particularly commodity taxes, which were deeply unpopular.

Research Interests

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