authored Namier (1988), a reappraisal of the Polish-born and Zionist historian Lewis Namier, and The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History. This was named as one of the best books of 2007 by the New York Times, and was a pioneer of the technique of using the life experiences of an individual to explore trans-national and trans-continental histories. In 2008-99, Colley guest-curated an exhibition at the British Library, London, Taking Liberties, on the meanings of constitutional texts in the British past, and published an interpretative essay in connection with this: Taking Stock of Taking Liberties: A Personal View (2008). In 2014, and in advance of the referendum on Scottish independence, she was invited to deliver fifteen talks on BBC Radio 4 on the formation and fractures of the United Kingdom. These were published as Acts of Union and Disunion (2014). Her next book The Gun, the Ship, and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions, and the Making of the Modern World, a global history that explores the relationship between warfare, crises and the spread of written constitution, appeared in 2021. Her work has been translated into fifteen languages. In 1999, Colley was invited to deliver the Prime Minister's Millennium Lecture at 10 Downing Street in London. Among other scholarly and public lectures, she has delivered the Trevelyan Lectures at Cambridge University, the Wiles Lectures at Queen's University Belfast, Ford and Bateman Lectures at Oxford University, the Nehru Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics, the Lewis Walpole Memorial Lecture at Yale University, the Carnochan Lecture at Stanford University, the President's Lecture at Princeton University in 2007, the Sir Douglas Robb Lectures at the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 2015, the Prothero Lecture for the Royal Historical Society in 2020, and the Wittrock Lecture at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in 2022. In 1999, Colley was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Historical Society, and the Academia Europaea. In 2009, she was awarded a CBE for services to history and, in 2022, Colley was made a DBE. She holds seven honorary degrees. Colley has served on the board of the British Library (1999–2003), the council of Tate Gallery of British Art (1999-2003), the board and trustees of Princeton University Press (2007–2012), the research committee of the British Museum (2012–2020). She writes occasionally