He studied English and Philosophy at Southampton University and was awarded an MPhil at Leicester University. He has acted as a consultant to the National Trust, and has lectured at several universities in both the United Kingdom and United States, including the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley.
Architecture and Ambition from Ancient Rome to Modern Paris
His invention so fertile: a life of Christopher Wren
Polite Tourist: A History of Country House Visiting First published in the UK by Basil Blackwell (1989) with a similar title, later published by the National Trust of London (1998)
By Permission of Heaven: The True Story of the Great Fire of London
Pirates of Barbary, London, Cape, 2010. ISBN 9780224085267