James McDermott holds a Doctorate in History and is a decorated writer. His previous publications include Martin Frobisher:Elizabethan Privateer (Yale University Press, 2001) which won the Keith Matthews Prize from the Canadian Nautical Research Society, 2001 and was short-listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, 2001; The Third Voyage of Martin Frobisher to Baffin Island, 1578 (Hakluyt Society, 2001); England and the Spanish Armada: The Necessary Quarrel (Yale University Press, 2005); British Military Service Tribunals, 1916 - 1918: 'Avery much abused body of men' (Manchester UP, July 2011).