His key publications include Gentlemen Capitalists: British Imperialism in Southeast Asia 1770-1890 (Tauris 1998); The Debate on the Rise of the British Empire (Manchester University Press 2006); The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta (Boydell 2007), The Empire in One City: Liverpool’s Inconvenient Past (Manchester University Press 2008 – edited with Nick White and Sheryllynne Haggerty), The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics 1790-1860 (Boydell 2009), Commodities, Ports and Asian Maritime Trade since 1770 (Palgrave 2015 – edited with Ulbe Bosma) and Mainstreaming Co-operation: An Alternative for the 21st Century (Manchester University Press 2016 – edited with Linda Shaw and Rachael Vorberg-Rugh). In 2005 he was awarded the Newcomen Prize for best article for that year in Enterprise & Society, for his article on John Palmer. With Professor John Wilson (Director of the Newcastle University Business School) and Rachael Vorberg-Rugh (the Co-operative College) he wrote Building Co-operation: A Business History of the Co-operative Group 1863-2013 (Oxford University Press 2013). The book formed the principal historical source used for the Kelly Report into the problems of the Co-operative Bank (2014), and Tony has presented his research at a Bank of England Seminar (2015). The project was supported by the British co-operative movement, with which Tony retains close links. He is a former Governor of the Co-operative College in Manchester, and Chairs the Heritage Advisory Committee of the National Co-operative Archive. Tony is also joint author of the approved AQA A level history Text book, “The British Empire 1857-1867” (Oxford University Press 2015). In 2019 he published "Co-operation & Globalisation" 9Routladge). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and member of the Economic History Society and a Common Purpose graduate.