I was born and educated in the UK where I obtained qualifications in languages and literature as well as in social science. I moved to Canada to take up a position at York University in Toronto 1990, and I was made Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science, Communications and Culture in 2005. I am now a citizen of both Canada and the UK. For more detail on my background in the UK see Chapter 1 of Power and Resistance in the New World Order, “Personal, Political and Intellectual Influences”. Since moving to York I have also been a Visiting Professor at different universities in the UK, USA and Japan, most recently at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During 2009-10 I was Erkko Visiting Research Professor for the Study of Contemporary Society at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki.

My theoretical interests include global political economy, political and social theory, international relations and law and cultural studies, including what has come to be known as “globalization” and “global governance”. My work has been published in several modern languages, including Japanese, and it has also addressed US hegemony, imperialism and strategy as well as transatlantic and ‘trilateral’ (US-EU-Japan relations) and European integration.

My best known books are: The Global Political Economy: Perspectives, Problems and Policies (with David Law, 1988); American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission (1990/91); Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (1993); Globalization, Democratization and Multilateralism (1997); Innovation and Transformation in International Studies (co-editor, 1997); and Power, Production and Social Reproduction: Human In/security in the Global Political Economy (with Isabella Bakker, 2004). My Power and Resistance in the New World Order (2003) won the Choice, Outstanding Academic Title Award of the American Library Association for 2003. An enlarged and fully updated second edition of this work was published in 2008.