He completed his BA (Honors) and Masters (Research) degrees at the University of Western Australia, and a PhD at the University of New South Wales. His publications include Perfecting the Family: Antislavery Marriages in Nineteenth-century America (University of Massachusetts Press, 1997), African America and Haiti: Emigration and Black Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century (Greenwood Press, 2000), and in collaboration with Sean Brawley, a number of works on the Pacific War, including Hollywood’s South Seas and the Pacific War: Searching for Dorothy Lamour (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). He is currently writing a history of African Americans in the Pacific War. He has served as President of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association and as President of the International Society for Cultural History. He is also an International Contributing Editor for the Journal of American History.