James Walston (1949 – 12 May 2014) was a professor of international relations at The American University of Rome (AUR), specialising in Italian politics and modern history.

[1] He was educated at Eton and Jesus College, Cambridge (BA 1975, and PhD 1986) and the University of Rome, La Sapienza (Diploma di Perfezionamento, 1981).

[2] Walston had taught mainly in the US system abroad, starting with the University of Maryland programme for the US military in Italy and the UK, Summer courses at Middlebury and various US programmes in Rome including Temple, Trinity and Loyola.

Since 2004 he had taught and directed the University of Rome La Sapienza's Eurosapienza's international relations module in the masters in State management and Humanitarian Affairs.

Walston was one of the first academics who wrote about forgotten fascist Italy's role in ethnic cleansing and internments of civil population in Italian concentration camps, such as under Mario Roatta's watch in the Province of Ljubljana, that are in Italian media subjected to the repression of historical memory, and to historical revisionism especially in relation to the post-war foibe massacres.