I pursued an academic career which was focused on environmental change with special emphasis on the industrial world. I am an Emeritus Professor.

My Fellowship to Japan and Canada led to a long-standing interest in both countries, with subsequent visits to both and a period of working in Canada in 1972-1973.

In the course of my work I published 11 books (there was another in the stocks in 2021), and some 125 papers and chapters in academic journals and edited collections. I have been elected to the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London, of the British Academy and of Academia Europaea, and was a foundation Chartered Geographer, also awarded the Victoria Medal of the RGS.

I now live on Deeside in Aberdeenshire.