Dr Christopher Hull

Dr Christopher Hull is module leader and lecturer on a first-year course that introduces students to Latin American society, culture, history, politics and the different language varieties of Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas. He supervises extended essay and dissertation projects on Spain and Latin America and leads a final-year module on Revolutionary Latin America, with a particular focus on Cuba from 1898 until the present day. Christopher also teaches a double-weighted Beginners' Spanish language module for first year students.

He shares teaching and supervision of postgraduate students on various language & culture evening modules at Chester.

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Dr Hull’s doctoral research focused on Anglo-Cuban relations (1898–1964), and he continues to be interested in diplomatic (or international) history, especially Anglo-American interactions concerning Latin America. A current research project is the 8-month long kidnapping of the British Ambassador to Uruguay Geoffrey Jackson by left-wing Tupamaros urban guerrillas in 1971. A recent project was British writer Graham Greene, particularly his visits to Cuba before and following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, his spy-fiction satire Our Man in Havana (published just 12 weeks before Fidel Castro's triumph), and the film version of this novel, partly filmed on location in Havana in the first months of 1959.

Another ongoing interest is football. He recently published a non-fiction book about the first joint-management experience of Brian Clough & Peter Taylor at lower-league Hartlepools United in 1965-67. He is currently undertaking research on the first British/English footballer to play for Real Madrid (1979-82).

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Books

Alchemy: Brian Clough & Peter Taylor at Hartlepools United (The History Press, UK: 2022).

Our Man Down in Havana: The Story Behind Graham Greene’s Cold War Spy Novel (Pegasus: New York & London, 2019).

British Diplomacy and US Hegemony in Cuba, 1898–1964 (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, UK, 2013).

Peer-reviewed articles

‘Parallel spheres: Anglo-American cooperation over Cuba, 1959–61’, Cold War History, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Feb. 2012), pp. 51–68.

‘“Going to War in Buses”: The Anglo-American Clash over Leyland Sales to Cuba, 1963–64’, Diplomatic History, Vol. 34, No. 5 (Nov. 2010), pp. 793–822.

‘British Diplomacy in Havana from the Second World War to the Revolution’, International Journal of Cuban Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (June 2009), pp. 54–63.

‘Our Arms in Havana: British Military Sales to Batista and Castro, 1958–59’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sept. 2007), pp. 593–616.

Online article

Cuba sufre el mayor éxodo ante su peor crisis desde el colapso de la URSS’, The Conversation (February 2023).

‘Cuba: why record numbers of people are leaving as the most severe economic crisis since the 1990s hits – a photo essay’, The Conversation (February 2023).

‘Our Graham Greene in Havana’, History Today (August 2019).

‘Cuba after Castro: royal visit to Havana reflects important shift in UK policy’, The Conversation (March 2019).

Chapters in edited books

‘The Limits of Anglo-American Cooperation in Cuba, 1945–1959’, in Rory M. Miller & Thomas C. Mills (eds.), Britain and the Growth of US Hegemony in Twentieth-Century Latin America: Competition, Cooperation and Coexistence (Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 229-50.

‘“In the Edge of a Cyclone”: Bill Marchant and the Cuban Missile Crisis’, in J. Simon Rofe & Andrew Stewart (eds.), Diplomats at War: The American Experience (Republic of Letters Press: Netherlands, 2013), pp. 205–23.

‘Prophecy and Comedy in Havana: Graham Greene’s Spy Novel and Cold War Reality’, in Dermot Gilvary & Darren J.N. Middleton (eds.), Dangerous Edges of Graham Greene: Paradoxical Journeys with Saints and Sinners (New York & London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 149–65.

Book Reviews        

Nov. 2020: Megan Feeney, Hollywood in Havana: US Cinema and Revolutionary Nationalism in Cuba before 1959 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019), in New West Indian Guide (KITLV Press), Vol. 94, Issue 3–4, pp. 365–66.

Feb. 2015: Catherine Krull (ed.), Cuba in a Global Context: International Relations, Internationalism, and Transnationalism (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2014), in Journal of Latin American Studies (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 208–210.

2014: Bernard Diederich, Seeds of Fiction: Graham Greene’s Adventures in Haiti and Central America, 1954–1963 (London: Peter Owen, 2012), in New West Indian Guide (KITLV Press), Vol. 88, Issue 3–4, pp. 405–7.

Feb. 2012: Howard Jones, The Bay of Pigs (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), in Journal of Latin American Studies (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 208–10.

Oct. 2011: Dervla Murphy, The Island that Dared: Journeys in Cuba (London: Eland, 2008); and, Richard Fleming, Walking to Guantánamo (New York: Commons, 2008), in Studies in Travel Writing (Taylor & Francis), Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 463–7.

May 2011: Julia E. Sweig, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), in Journal of Latin American Studies (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 405–7.

Feb. 2011: Juan Carlos Rodríguez, The Inevitable Battle: From the Bay of Pigs to Playa Girón(Atlanta, GA: Pathfinder Press, 2009), in Journal of Latin American Studies (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 191–3.

Oct. 2010: Leslie Bethel (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America: Vol. IX, Brazil Since 1930(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), in Bulletin of Latin American Research (Wiley-Blackwell), Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 522–3.

Jan. 2010: Thomas H. Holloway (ed.), A Companion to Latin American History (Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), in Bulletin of Latin American Research (Wiley-Blackwell), Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 106–7.

• BA (Newcastle)
• MLitt (Newcastle)
• PhD (Nottingham)