Professor Kevin Ruane

As a Professor of Modern History, I specialise in twentieth-century international history, in particular the Cold War, the Nuclear Age, the Vietnam war, and the Anglo-American “special relationship”. I am also a literary historian, interested in the way that historical themes are treated in fiction, especially the twentieth-century novel and, in particular, the works of Graham Greene. I have published widely on all these areas, and my university teaching modules reflect my research specialisms. My media career includes work on programmes for the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, C-SPAN, NHK in Japan, and the History Channel, as well as BBC radio. I have acted as historical consultant on television documentaries and stage plays, and contribute to educational web platforms such as Audiopi, Massolit, Dan Snow’s HistoryHit, and the Churchill Archive for Schools. 

In teaching terms, I am responsible for or contribute to a range of undergraduate and postgraduate taught modules, as well as supervise postgraduate research students on M. Res, M. Phil and Ph.D programmes. Most of these modules key to my research specialisms: The Cold War and the Making of the Modern World (Level 4/Year 1) War and Revolution in Vietnam 1930-1975 (Level 5/Year 2) Manifestations of Empire (Level 5/Year 2) The Futures of the Past: Public History and Our Present Debate (Level 5/Year 2) The Bomb: the Nuclear Age, 1932-1972 (Level 6/Year 3) Watching the World Burn: Cold War Cinema (Lever 7/MA)

1. Research on Graham Greene

My current research - two inter-connected projects - focuses on novelist, playwright and screenwriter Graham Greene (1904-1991). In the short term, I am hoping to put together an edited collection of Greene’s correspondence with his American-born lover Catherine Walston; their passionate and intense relationship ran for more than a decade from the late-1940s and inspired Greene to write arguably his finest novel, The End of the Affair (1951). My second project is a major study of Greene’s real-life adventures in French Indo-China in the early 1950s, experiences which he poured into his evocative and prophetic 1955 Vietnam-centred novel The Quiet American.

2. Research on Churchill and Nuclear History

My book Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War was named by BBC History magazine as one of the History Books of 2016, and I continue to research, publish and teach on many aspects of the history of the Nuclear Age. I have had the privilege of speaking on Churchillian/nuclear themes at the 2016 (Washington DC) and 2017 (New York City) International Churchill Society conferences; to my delight, my 2017 talk was introduced by Churchill’s grand-daughter, the brilliant artist Edwina Sandys. In November 2022 I was given the honour of delivering the after-dinner address at Chartwell, the Churchill family home in Kent, on the occasion of his birthday (his 148th, as it happens). Before then, in 2017, I was elected an Archives By-Fellow of the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, University of Cambridge.

3. Research on the Vietnam/Indo-China War, and Anthony Eden

My doctoral research was on the French war in Indo-China, and I have since published and taught widely on modern Vietnamese history. My most recent book, co-authored with Professor Matthew Jones of the London School of Economics and Political Science, came out in 2019 and is entitled Anthony Eden, Anglo-American Relations and the 1954 Indochina Crisis. I have written two other books on Vietnam: War and Revolution in Vietnam, 1930-1975 (1998) and The Vietnam Wars (2000). As to Anthony Eden, I first became interested in his career when working on a book on the plan in the 1950s to build a European Army, The Rise and Fall of The European Defence Community: Anglo-American Relations and the Crisis of European Defence 1950-1955 (2000).

Books
Anthony Eden, Anglo-American Relations and the 1954 Indochina Crisis (London: Bloomsbury, 2019, co-author Matthew Jones).
Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).
The Rise and Fall of the European Defence Community: Anglo-American Relations and the Crisis of European Defence, 1950-1955 (London: Macmillan, 2000).
The Vietnam Wars (Manchester: MUP, 2000).
War and Revolution in Vietnam, 1930-1975 (London: Routledge, 1998).

Recent chapters, articles, blogs
‘Churchill and the Soviet Union’, Finest Hour, forthcoming 2023.
‘The Prime Minister and the Professor’, Finest Hour, 195/1 (2022), pp. 14-21.
‘Churchill and the Nuclear Cold War’, Finest Hour, 186/4 (2019), pp. 23-27
‘Graham Greene in Love and War: French Indochina and the Making of The Quiet American’, Journal of Graham Greene Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2017), pp. 97-109.
‘Churchill and the Cold War’, in Richard Toye, ed., Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy and Statecraft in the Twentieth Century (London: Bloomsbury, 2017).
‘Churchill and Nuclear Weapons’, in Richard Toye, ed., Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy and Statecraft in the Twentieth Century (London: Bloomsbury, 2017).
‘Advising the Un-Advisable: the Number 10 Private Office and the Suez Crisis’, in Andrew Holt & Warren Dockter, eds, Private Secretaries to the Prime Ministers: from Churchill to Thatcher (Routledge, 2017).
‘Winston Churchill, the X-Files and Alien life-forms’, CCCU Expert Comment, Blog (February 2017).
‘Winston Churchill: Atomic Warrior, Nuclear Peacemaker’, BBC History Magazine (November 2016).
‘The nuclear Donald Trump: A peculiarly British

Media
Because of my research interests I am in regular demand as a contributor to history programmes on television, radio and online platforms. In 2016 I also had the pleasure of working with the brilliant theatre director John Haidar and the cast of The Last of the Boys by US playwright Steven Dietz which had its European premiere in London at the Southwark Playhouse. As the play’s historical consultant, I was thrilled to be able to blend a career spent researching Vietnam with my love of theatre. As an added bonus – and added privilege – I took to the stage myself at the close of one performance for an audience Q&A alongside John Haidar and the legendary Jan Harlan, brother-in-law and producer-collaborator of film director Stanley Kubrick, who worked on Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and other iconic Kubrick movies. In other semi-related work, I was one of the editors of the journal Contemporary British History for ten years and remain on the journal's editorial board.

Recent television, radio, recordings, podcasts,
2022, ‘Korea: the First Cold War’, Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson (Channel 4).
2022, ‘Malaya: Rumbles in the Jungle, 1948’, Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson (Channel 4).
2022, ‘Suez: the Line in the Sand’, Britain’s Forgotten Wars with Tony Robinson (Channel 4).
2022, ‘Anthony Eden, Anglo-American Relations, and the 1954 Indochina Crisis’, New Books Network, podcast.
2021, 'Fallen Hero', Episode 5 of Churchill (Channel 5).
2020, 'America, Japan and the Atomic Bomb', Dan Snow's History Hit, podcast.
2020, 'The Vietnam War, Dan Snow's History Hit, podcast.

Recent public lectures and talks
2023, forthcoming, ‘Churchill and Brexit’, The Churchill Society of Norway, Oslo
2023, forthcoming, ‘Allies at War: Britain, America and the Korean War’, Historical Association, Canterbury branch.
2022, ‘Churchill, God and the A-Bomb’, keynote after-dinner address, Chartwell, on the occasion of Winston Churchill’s 148th birthday.
2022, ‘The Prime Minister and the Professor’, on the Churchill-Lindemann relationship, CCCU Festival of Heritage, Creativity and Culture
2019, 'Anthony Eden and the 1954 Indochina Crisis', with Prof Matthew Jones, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London.
2019, ‘“It was our Bible”: American Vietnam War reporters and The Quiet American', Graham Greene International Festival.
2019, ‘“The Bulldog of Brexit”? Winston Churchill and the Great Debate on Europe’, Canterbury Christ Church University Public Lecture series
2018, ‘William Penney, Winston Churchill, and the UK Nuclear Weapons Project’, The Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Fort Halstead’.
2017, ‘“Our Man in Hanoi: the Strange and Enduring Friendship between Graham Greene and Confidential Agent Trevor Wilson’, Graham Greene International Festival.
2017, ‘Churchill the Nuclear Statesman’, 34th International Churchill Conference, New York City, 2017.
2017, ‘Winston Churchill and the Atomic Bombing of Japan’, Second World War Research Group Annual Conference, King’s College, London.
2017, ‘Remembering the 1942 Baedeker Raid on Canterbury’, 75th Anniversary Commemoration Event, CCCU, Canterbury.
‘Churchill and the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945’, Historical Association Annual Conference, Manchester.
2017, 'Why did the USA fail in Vietnam?', Bastille Society, Shrewsbury.
2016, ‘Winston's Atomic Orange: Churchill and the Bomb in War and Cold War, Historical Association, Canterbury branch.
2016, ‘Churchill and Nuclear Weapons’, debate hosted by the Churchill Archives Centres, Churchill College, University of Cambridge.
2016, ‘Sir John Anderson’, 33rd International Churchill Conference, Washington DC.
2013, ‘John F. Kennedy, the Cold War, and “what might have been”: Reflections offered on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Assassination’, Historical Association, Canterbury branch.
2012, ‘The Hidden History of Graham Greene’s Vietnam War: Fact and Fiction and The Quiet American’