Rosemary Hollis
British political scientist
Rosemary "Rosy" Hollis (27 March 1952 – 5 June 2020) was a British scholar of international relations. Professor of Middle East Policy Studies at City University London until her retirement in 2018, Hollis was known for her expertise and scholarship on the relations between the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States with the Middle East. She was formerly the Research Director at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs).
Biography
Background
Rosemary Hollis was born in Dudley, England, on 27 March 1952. She was educated at the Alice Ottley School, Worcester and graduated from King's College, London, with a BA in History in 1974 and MA in War Studies in 1975. Before moving to the United States in 1980, she held various research positions in the media and commerce in London, having also worked for the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
She gained a PhD in Political Science from George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she was also a lecturer in Political Science and International Affairs (1980–1989).
Career
In 1990 she returned to the United Kingdom, to become the head of the Middle East programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, a position she held until 1995. She then moved to a similar role at Chatham House, as head of its Middle East programme. In 2005 she became director of research at Chatham House, with overall responsibility for research activity, project formulation, grant applications and the publications of the institute.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Rosemary Hollis” is british political scientist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Rosemary, Hollis and British, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “british political scientist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q17016190. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2020, 2018 and 1974.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Rosemary Hollis”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Rosemary Hollis primary sources, Rosemary Hollis archive and Rosemary research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rosemary Hollis”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Rosemary Hollis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.