In 1975 he graduated with a DPhil from St Antony's College, Oxford, with an original dissertation on Costa Rica where he pioneered the concept of constructing databases from primary sources and applying them to Latin American economic history.
He was the guest editor of a special issue of the Journal of Latin American Studies on Central America published in 1983, and he joined the editorial board in 1984 – a post he held without interruption for 25 years.
In 1988 he launched a Masters in Economics with special reference to Latin America at Queen Mary, which attracted many students from the region.
Two years later, he became the Director of London University's Institute of Latin American Studies, although he remained attached to Queen Mary.
He retired as Director in 1998, but remained on the staff of the Institute of Latin American Studies as Senior Research Fellow.
Having by then published 20 books as sole author or editor, including the two volume Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, he was content to let research take a back seat while he concentrated on reviving the fortunes of Chatham House.
After leaving Chatham House at the end of 2006, he became a visiting professor at Florida International University where he worked on an economic history of the Caribbean since the Napoleonic Wars.