Dr Jonathan Colman
Jonathan is a historian of British and American foreign policies. His latest research monograph explores the career of Sir Frank Kenyon Roberts, a diplomat of Lancastrian origins who was one of the founders of Britain’s Cold War in the 1940s and who worked closely with his much-studied US counterpart George F Kennan.
Jonathan has worked at the prestigious Department of International Politics at the University of Aberystwyth. He now teaches undergraduate modules exploring US domestic history, superpower relations, and the Kennedy presidency. At postgraduate level, he teaches British foreign and defence policies, and the role of secret intelligence in international relations.
Jonathan is a Research Degrees Tutor and a joint lead for REF UoA28 (History). He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on British and American foreign policies. His fourth monograph, Britain’s Mr ‘X’: The Diplomatic Career of Sir Frank Kenyon Roberts 1930-68 (Manchester University Press, 2025) explores the contributions of a highly consequential but previously overlooked diplomat. Roberts was especially notable for his close cooperation in Moscow with the celebrated American diplomat George F Kennan, and helped to frame Britain’s strategy for the Cold War. Jonathan was awarded an Archives By-Fellowship from Churchill College, Cambridge University, to support the project, and is now undertaking research, with the aid of funding from the British Academy, for a monograph evaluating the career of another British diplomat, Sir Alexander Cadogan.
Jonathan has supervised several PhD students and welcomes the opportunity to supervise further research exploring twentieth-century diplomatic and international history, especially British and American foreign policies. Jonathan is the special issues editor for the International History Review and he is the book reviews editor for Diplomacy and Statecraft.
- PhD in History, University of Liverpool, 2003.
- MA (Distinction) in International Studies, University of Leeds, 1995.
- PGCE in Further, Adult and Higher Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, 2003.
- BA (Hons) First Class in Combined Honours, Liverpool Institute of Higher Education, 1995.
- British Academy Small Grant 2025-27 for ‘Sir Alexander Cadogan and the Making of British Foreign Policy, 1936-51’
- Churchill College Archives By-Fellowship, University of Cambridge, 2021
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, 2016
- Diplomatic/international history of the twentieth century, especially British and American foreign policies through the Second World War and the Cold War
- Anglo-American relations
- the Cuban Missile Crisis
- the Vietnam War
- US presidents especially Kennedy and Johnson
- Archives By-Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge
- Fellow of the Higher Education Authority
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- History
- Jonathan's current research, funded by the British Academy and Leverhulme Small Research Grant SRG2425\250278, examines the role of Sir Alexander Cadogan in the making and execution of British foreign policy, 1936-51. Cadogan served as the Foreign Office’s Deputy Under-Secretary (1936-38), Permanent Under-Secretary (1938-46), Britain's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1946-50), and as chair in 1951 of a Cabinet committee evaluating the impact of the Burgess and Maclean defection. The research will lead to the publication of a monograph and journal articles exploring his contributions, during a period in which Britain faced successive major challenges.
- Jonathan has been awarded research funding from the British Academy and numerous other sources.
- Jonathan has presented his research findings at conferences of the British International History Group, the Transatlantic Studies Association, and the British Association for American Studies.
Telephone:+44 (0)1772 893114
Email: Email:Dr Jonathan Colman
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