Research summary
- 20th century international relations; also the politics and diplomacy of fixing the line of what is now the US-Canadian border (1763-1910)
- 19th and 20th century British history, more especially rural, electoral, local government, and the finances of Oxford and other universities
Publications
a) i) The North American Border, Diplomacy and Maps in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Longest Boundary: How the US-Canadian Border’s Line came to be where it is, 1763-1910
Volume 1 – Coast to Coast (Grosvenor House, 2024: ISBN 978-1-80381-637-1)
Volume 2 – Consolidation, Confirmation and Completion (Grosvenor House, 2024: ISBN 978-1-80381-638-8)
ebook (both volumes) - (Grosvenor House, 2024: ISBN 978-1-80381- 639-5)
'The 1831 Dutch Arbitration of the Canadian-American Boundary Dispute: Another View' - New England Quarterly lxxv (2002) pp. 622-46
'Red Lines on Maps: the Impact of Cartographical Errors on the Border between the United States and British North America, 1782-1842', Imago Mundi l (1997) pp. 105-25
‘”Red Lines on Maps” Revisited: The Role of Maps in Negotiating and Defending the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty’, Imago Mundi lxiii (2011) pp. 39-60
‘Haro or Rosario? Maps, Navigation, and the Anglo-American Northwest Water Boundary Dispute, 1846-72’, BC Studies 186 (Summer 2015) pp. 39-93
'Motives for Mapping the Great Lakes: Upper Canada, 1782-1827', Michigan Historical Review xxxi (Spring 2005) pp.1-43 – reprinted in Mapping in Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, ed. David I. MacLeod (Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, Michigan, 2007) pp. 91-122
ii) Borders in general
‘Terrestrial Borders, their management and visualisation – a historical tour’, Ricerche di Storia Politica (Bologna – ISSN 1120-9526) 1/2026 pp. 13-29
b) International Relations since 1945
The Cold War: the Great Powers and their Allies (much revised 2nd edn., Pearson/Longman, Nov. 2007, 665pp. - 1rst. edn., 1994)
The Post-Imperial Age: the Great Powers and the Wider World (Longman: 1994, 549 pp.)
'Die Haltung der britischen Regierung in den 50er und 80er Jahren im Vergleich' in Bedrohung durch die Sowjetunion? Westliche Analysen der politischen Absichten Moskaus in Zeitvergleich der 50er und 80er Jahre, ed.Carl-Christoph Schweitzer (Baden-Baden, 1989)
slightly reduced and amended version of the above in C.C.Schweitzer (ed.), The changing analysis of the Soviet threat ... (London, 1990) pp.151-66
'Potenza economica, forza militare e strategie egemoniche', Contemporanea: Rivista di Storia dell'800 e del '900
[Bologna] v (April 2002) pp.381-94 (review of reissue of Paul Kennedy, Ascesa e declino delle grande potenze
‘Le più importante svolte scaturite del 1989’ (pp. 311-320) in ‘A vent’anni del crollo del muro di Berlina. Politica e memoria’ a cura di Christiane Liermann e Maria Serena Piretti, Contemporanea xii (2009)
‘La decolonizzazione Britannica, Rassegna’, Ricerche di Storia Politica [Bologna] I/II [Nuova Serie] (April 2011) pp. 53-85
c) The ‘International System’
'The League of Nations' Place in the International System', History 1993 pp.421-42
'The Security Council in the Wings: Exploring the Non-involvement of the Security Council in Wars' - in The United Nations Security Council and War, ed. Vaughan Lowe, Sir Adam Roberts, Jennifer Welsh, Dominik Zaum (O.U.P., 2008 – paperback, 2010)
d) British rearmament and foreign policy in the 1930s
'The British Military Establishment and the Policy of Appeasement' in Wolfgang Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker (eds.), The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement (1983) pp.174-96
'British Rearmament in the 1930s: a Chronology and Review', Historical Journal 1975 pp.587-609
'Neville Chamberlains briefwisseling met zijn zusters, 1938-1939' in Het persoonlijke is politiek: Egodocumenten en politieke cultuur (Remig Aerts, Janny de Jong, Henk te Velde eds.), (Hilversum, 2002 - ISBN 90-6550-706-x) pp.137-151
e) Nineteenth Century British Rural History and related topics
Rural Discontent in Nineteenth Century Britain (Faber & Faber, 1974; two other contributors, 240pp. of own
writing)
'The "Revolt of the Field": the agricultural labourers' movement in the 1870s', Past and Present 1963 pp.60-97, and reply to criticism in ibid. 1964 pp.110-13
'The Incidence and Organization of Agricultural Trades Unionism in the 1870s', Agricultural History Review 1968 pp.114-41
review of Eric Richards, A History of the Highland Clearances, Vol.2 in Scottish Economic and Social Hist ory vii (1987) pp.86-8
'Can we tell whether Arch raised wages?' - Economic History Review xlix (1996) pp.362-9
'The Demographic Causes of the Industrial Revolution - Some Qualifications' - Journal of European
Economic History [Rome] xxiv (1995) pp.405-10
f) The financial history of Oxbridge and other British universities
'College Estates and Wealth 1660-1815' in The History of the University of Oxford, vol.5 (O.U.P., 1986, ed. L.Sutherland and L.G.Mitchell) pp. 269-301
'Finance and Property 1800-1914' - ibid. vol.6 Part 1 (ed.M.G.Brock) (1997) pp. 375-440
'Finance since 1914' - ibid. vol.7 (ed. Brian Harrison) (1994) pp. 639-82
Ralph Evans and J.P.D.Dunbabin, ‘The Estates of Oriel, 1324-1920’, in Jeremy Catto ed., Oriel College A History (Oxford, 2013) pp. 476-525
'Oxford and Cambridge College Finances, 1871-1913', Economic History Review 1975 pp. 631-47, and reply to criticism - ibid.1978 pp. 446-9
'Trends in the Financing of British Universities in the 19th and 20th centuries' in Finanzierung von Universität und Wissenschaft in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (ed.Rainer Christoph Schwinges) (ISBN 3-7965 -2028-6, Basel, 2005) pp. 247-69
g) British Electoral Reform and Psephological History
'Le riforme elettorali e le loro consequenze nel Regno Unito, 1865-1895' in La trasformazione politica nell'Europa liberale 1870-1890 (ed.P.Pombeni) (Bologna,1986) pp.109-50
abbreviated version of the above - 'Electoral Reforms and their Outcome in the United Kingdom 1865-1900' - in T.R.Gourvish and Alan O'Day (eds.), Later Victorian Britain, 1867-1900 (Macmillan, 1988) pp.93-125
'Some Implications of the 1885 British Shift towards Single-Member Constituencies: A Note', English Historical Review 1994 pp.89-100
'British elections in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a regional approach', English Historical Review 1980 pp. 241-67 - translated in M.Brigaglia (ed.), L'Origine dei partiti politici nell'Europa contemporanea 1870-1914 (Bologna, 1985)
'Parliamentary Elections in Great Britain, 1868-1900: a Psephological Note', English Historical Review 1967 pp. 82-99
h) British government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
'La Gran Bretagna all'inizio del XX secolo: il declino del "night-watchman state"', Ricerche di Storia Politica (Bologna) vii (1992) pp. 79-107
'British local government reform: the nineteenth century and after', English Historical Review 1977 pp. 777-805
'The Politics of the Establishment of County Councils' and 'Expectations of the New County Councils, and their realization', Historical Journal 1963 pp. 226-52 and 1965 pp. 353-79
'L'autogoverno locale nell'Inghilterra dell' Ottocento' in N.Matteucci and P.Pombeni (eds.), L'Organizzazione della politica. Cultura, istituzioni, partiti nell’ Europa liberale (Bologna, 1988) pp.397-428
'Self-Government e Potere nella tradizione politica e giuridica inglese' in Ettore Albertoni and Massimo Ganci (eds.), Federalismo, Regionalismo, Autonomismo, ii (Enna, 1989) - reprinted in E.A.Albertoni (ed.), Federalismo, Regionalismo, Autonomismo ... (Milan, 1992)
i) British political culture in the nineteenth century
'Oliver Cromwell's Popular Image in Nineteenth-Century England' in Britain and the Netherlands (ed. J.S.Bromley and E.H.Kossman) (1975) pp.141-63