Philip Stephens

Welcome to the website of Philip Stephens,

I am a writer and historian, the author most recently of a widely praised account of Britain's post-imperial struggle to find its place in the world: Britain Alone - the Path from Suez to Brexit. I am a Contributing Editor for the Financial Times, where for 25 years I wrote a regular column about political and international affairs.
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I see the world as on the cusp of the most profound geopolitical upheaval since the end of the Cold War. If history was ever suspended after the fall of the Berlin Wall it has now resumed. I enjoy trying to make sense of this new, fractured and precarious world. I am a frequent speaker and moderator at international conferences, an Honorary Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, a Richard Von Weizsacker fellow at the Bosch Academy, and a member of the Board of the Franco-British Colloque. I grew up in London but have roots in Co Mayo in the west of Ireland.

This website has information about my books, writing and videos of some of my appearances.

LATEST BOOK

Britain Alone

The Path from Suez to Brexit

'Compelling, informative and readable . . . offers much-needed substance.'

Financial Times

“Admirably lucid and measured, as well as studded with sharp pen portraits of the key players, Britain Alone gives us the fullest long-run political and diplomatic narrative yet of Britain’s fateful, tragi-comic road to Brexit.”

DAVID KYNASTON

“Philip Stephens has produced that rare thing - an instant classic. Britain Alone is the codebook we need to unravel the six and a half decades between Suez and Brexit, and Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.”

PETER HENNESSY

"What could have been a meandering history becomes, in Stephens’s hands, a gripping saga of blunders, triumphs and missed opportunities."

Prospect