Jonathan Colman

Background

About Jonathan Colman

Greetings! I am a historian of British and US foreign policies, including the role of embassies and foreign ministries, during the Second World War and the Cold War. I have published widely, including four monographs with university presses, numerous articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, and several chapters in edited books. I am a former Archives By-Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and I am the book reviews editor for the journal of international affairs Diplomacy and Statecraft and the special issues editor for International History Review. I teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules on US domestic history, twentieth century international relations, and British foreign policy. I am an external examiner for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at the universities of Wolverhampton and South Wales.My latest book with Manchester University Press:_Britain's 'Mr X': Sir Frank Roberts and the Making of British Foreign Policy, 1930-68_https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526180964/Over four decades in the British foreign service, Sir Frank Roberts dealt with headline issues, including policy towards Germany during the years of appeasement, the Second World War alliance with the Soviet Union, the origins of the Cold War, NATO affairs, the Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises, European integration, and relations with the Federal Republic of Germany. Roberts made a difference. Collaborating with the renowned American diplomat, George F. Kennan (the cryptonymous author ‘X’ of an influential 1947 article), his despatches from Moscow in 1946 shaped Britain’s Cold War strategy. In 1954 he played an integral part in the diplomacy behind the rearmament of the Federal Republic and her incorporation into NATO, helping to build an enduring structure of transatlantic security. Roberts’ career, largely overlooked by historians, shows how officials can shape major events, and sheds new light on British foreign policy across an era in which Britain slipped from global pre-eminence to regional power status. With the support of British Academy funding, I'm now completely a study of the British diplomat Sir Alexander Cadogan, who was the Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office 1938-46, then Permanent Representative in the United Nations.