Christopher Kelly (historian)

Christopher Kelly (b. 1964) is a classicist and historian who specializes in the Roman Empire and the classical tradition.

Kelly's first major work was Ruling the Later Roman Empire (2006). In The End of Empire (2009), characterized as a "semi-popular work", he took a revisionist view of Attila the Hun as a "thoughtful and effective political and military leader."

Kelly is a reader in ancient history and fellow and director of classical studies at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. From 2006 to 2008, he held a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. He was educated as an undergraduate in classics and law at the University of Sydney in Australia, and earned a doctorate at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Kelly was editor of the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society and Cambridge Classical Journal from 2000 to 2006. He serves on the editorial committee of the Journal of Roman Studies.

Kelly contributed to The Cambridge Ancient History and to Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World, edited by G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar. He is an occasional reviewer for publications such as London Review of Books, Literary Review, and History Today.

Books

• Ruling the Later Roman Empire (Harvard University Press, 2004)
• The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2006), from the Very Short Introductions series
• The End of Empire: Attila the Hun and the Fall of Rome (Norton, New York, 2009)
• Editor, Unclassical Traditions I (Alternatives to the Classical Past in late Antiquity) and II (Perspectives from East and West in late Antiquity) (Cambridge University Press, 2010 and 2011)