Zaib Aziz is a historian of global and imperial history with a focus on the British Empire and Modern South Asia. She is particularly interested in histories of decolonization, labour and internationalism. Currently, she is Assistant Professor in the History of the Modern British Empire at the University of South Florida, Tampa. She received her PhD in History at Yale University in 2022. Her dissertation, “Nations Ascendant: The Global Campaign Against Empire and the Making of Our World” won the university wide John Addison Porter Prize and was also awarded the Arthur and Mary Wright Prize from the Yale Department of History.

Her current book project traces the origins of global decolonization and the rise of universal self-determination in the twentieth century. This book traces the origins and politics of this international community of colonial activists, thinkers and campaigners in the aftermath of the First World War and shows how they came to share ideas about universal decolonization and the end of empires.

Focusing on the global networks which appeared during the interwar years, Nations Ascendant shows that radical activists and thinkers – from various imperial and national polities – challenged the imperial world order and contributed towards the ends of empire. Drawing from over twenty-five archives spread around ten cities, the book shows the existence of a global public sphere, whose members though not always proximate considered themselves as part of a common political community striving against imperialism.