I work on the social history of eighteenth-century Paris and of other European cities in the early modern period.  My most recent book is The Huguenots of Paris and the coming of Religious Freedom (Cambridge UP, 2014).  I am currently working on a fire history of European cities from the 16th to the 19th century, on a history of religious confraternities in eighteenth-century Paris, and as part of a team writing a history of women's letter-writing in Europe.  I also have a new project on the mobility of artisans to and from Paris in the eighteenth century.

I have several times been Visiting Fellow at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 2003 and early 2008 and in June 2005 was Visiting Professor at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyons. In 2003 my book The Making of Revolutionary Paris won the NSW Premier's Prize for History (General Section) and in 2004 I was elected to the Australian Academy of the Humanities. I have served on the Executive of the Australian Historical Association, the Editorial Boards of H-France, French Historical Studies, and the Australian Journal of French Studies. I have twice co-organized the George Rudé Seminar in French History and Civilization, a major international conference held every second year in Australia or New Zealand.