I was born in Chesterfield (UK) in September 1961. I grew up in a small village near Lincoln. I was educated at the Magnus Grammar School, Newark on Trent, and Durham University, where I read Politics and had a marvellous time (although my exploits as a satirist got me into trouble from time to time). I graduated with honours in June 1983. I am a member of the alumni association of University College, Durham.
In November 1983, I was awarded a prize scholarship by the University of Wales to fund a PhD in the general field of ‘Public opinion and propaganda’. My thesis, which was a detailed account of the foreign policy of the ‘progressive’ press in Britain between 1936 and 1945, was defended in July 1990, on the day England lost, on penalties, to Germany in the semi-final of the World Cup. I have remained interested in Britain’s liberal-socialist intellectuals ever since. They were important thinkers who deserve a greater role in the intellectual history of our times.
I met my wife, Luciana, in Swansea, where I was doing my graduate work. When I met her, she lived in a house across the road from Dylan Thomas’s birthplace and in the very room where Wittgenstein wrote Philosophical Investigations. We married in 1987 and have one son, Francisco. Luciana teaches English at the liceo Galileo Galilei in Trento; Francisco is starting his career as a student of medicine at Bologna University.
I first moved to Italy in November 1986 and immediately became very interested in its contemporary politics and history. I learned to speak and write fluently in Italian and have tried my best to understand this maddening, fascinating, and very creative nation and people.
My first book on Italy, The Italian Revolution: The End of Politics, Italian Style? (1995) was written while I was assistant professor at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I spent three years (1993─96) in Pennsylvania. I always joke that I was educated in Britain and professionalized at Dickinson. In general, the experience of living in the United States and working in the American system of higher education has shaped me in many mostly positive ways.
I have spent my entire adult life as a student or university teacher. I taught Italian history and politics at the University of Bath in the West of England between 1997 and 2002 and contemporary European history at Trento University from 2002 to 2010. I moved to Bologna in 2010 as a visiting professor and stayed. I cannot imagine doing any other job, though I do think I might have made quite a good publisher. Teaching at SAIS is a challenging, rewarding and thought-provoking business. My students even forgive me for being a grade deflationist, which says much for their character.
In my sadly reduced spare time I walk in the Dolomites, listen to jazz and read indiscriminately. My biggest influence among contemporary historians was P.M.H. Bell, who sadly passed away in 2017. I was very proud when Philip asked me to update his The World since 1945 (Bloomsbury, 2016). The writers whom I never tire of reading are Jane Austen, Robert Bolt, Robert Graves, Graham Greene, John Le Carre, Orwell, Tolkien, Trollope, C.P. Snow, Shakespeare and – I admit it – detective story writers such as Agatha Christie and humourists such as P.G. Wodehouse and John Mortimer. I will add Tom Wolfe. Isaiah Berlin, L.T. Hobhouse, Burke and Paine are the political thinkers I always return to. It might be deduced from this list of names that my cosmopolitan career has not prevented me from remaining very English.