• History and historiography of twentieth-century Britain
• Global histories  of technology and production
• The British state and British militarism
• Material histories of modernity
• Technocrats and experts in the modern world.

David Edgerton is known for challenging the welfarism and declinism of much of the older historiography of twentieth-century Britain and for developing the concepts of the British warfare state and liberal militarism. He is also known for a new approach to the histories of science and technology focussing on the asking of historical questions and avoiding the innovation and academic-centric accounts derived from the discourses of interested parties and which opens up the possibility of fresh material histories of modernity.  His The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History since 1900 (Profile, 2006) is available in French, Spanish, Korean, and Chinese translation. His The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: a twentieth-century history was published by Allen Lane in June 2018.

He  welcomes inquiries from prospective research students.