He has a PhD from Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of a number of works on naval themes, including Fool-proof Relations: The Search for Anglo-American Naval cooperation in the Chamberlain Years, 1937-40 (1985), Hostage on the Yangtze: Britain, China and the Amethyst Crisis of 1949 (1991), and the co-written Between Two Oceans: A Military History of Singapore from First Settlement to Final British Withdrawal. He is also the editor of The First Sea Lords (1999). More by this Author