[3] Having initially been cajoled by his parents to study medicine at the University of Glasgow, he switched to an arts degree following a series of low marks in his examinations, graduating MA Hons.
He then spent an additional year studying American politics at Harvard University on a Rockefeller Research Fellowship.
His other two siblings, Willie and Diarmuid, both taught at St Mungo's Academy in the East End of Glasgow.
"[2] According to Herbert Butterfield, the left-wing economist Harold Laski endowed Brogan with "both the stimulus and the patronage" necessary to write the book.
Five years later, in 1939, he moved to the University of Cambridge to take up the chair in political science, becoming a fellow of Peterhouse; he remained there until his retirement in 1968.