I studied PPE at Oriel College, Oxford (1983-1986) and studied for Phd at Kings College, Cambridge (1991). My supervisor in Cambridge was Paul Ginsborg, and I worked on the cultural and social history of World War One in Milan and Lombardy, and the period after the conflict known as the 'two red years'. I looked into the alliances (or lack of them) between socialists and catholics, workers and peasants and the working class and the middle classes over this time of revolution and defeat. This material was published as a series of articles in the 1990s.
From 1992-1995 I was Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge. I began to work on the period of the 'economic miracle' in the city of Milan, and this research eventually led to a book called Milan since the Miracle which appeared in English and Italian in 2001 and 2003.
In 2002 I was commissioned by the town of Pero to write a history of immigration to the city in the 1950s and 1960s. This led to a book in 2004.
I also wrote a new textbook called Modern Italy (2003). A new edition of this book appeared in 2014.
In this period I was working on a major research project based in UCL with a number of other colleagues. This led to the documentary film, Ringhiera: Story of a House (2004), which was shown at a number of film festivals and conferences.
In 2004 I began to look at the history of Italian football for a major book-length project. Calcio was published in Italian and English in 2006-7, around the time of the calciopoli scandals and Italy's world cup triumphs. Numerous other editions of this book have appeared since, the latest in 2012 in Italian. The book was runner-up in the Premio Bancarella Sports Book prize in 2008.
My next project was to examine the concept of divided memory through a detailed study of debates over the past in contemporary Italy. This work came out of an interest in the events and post-memory of the Piazza Fontana bomb in 1969 in Milan and the death of Giuseppe Pinelli. This work eventually led to a monograph in Italian and English (2009 and 2011) - Fratture d'Italia and Italy's Divided Memory.
My interest in the history of Italian sport led to research into Italian cycling and the Giro d'Italia, which was published as Pedalare! Pedalare! in English and Italian in 2011 and 2012.
In 2011 I was awarded a Wellcome Trust grant to carry out research into the history and memory of the radical psychiatry movement in Italy which eventually closed down the asylums. This work had a particular focus on the life and times of the psychiatrist Franco Basaglia (1924-1980). It will be published in Italian and English in 2014, the 90th anniversary of Basaglia's birth.
The book-length study was published in Italian with Feltrinelli in 2014, the 90th anniversary of Basaglia's birth, and appeared in English with Verso in 2015.
I  co-edited the journal Modern Italy, which appears four times a year, from 2010-2014 (with Phil Cooke).
In 2018-2019 I published a new, popular history of post-war Italy (Laterza and Bloomsbury). This appeared as The Archipelago. Italy since 1945 with Bloomsbury and L'Italia e le sue storie. 1945-2019with Laterza. The Italian edition of the book was awarded the Premio FiuggiStoria Europa in 2019.
I have also carried out further research into the closure of the psychiatric hospitals in Italy after 1978. In particular I have edited a study of the impact of Franco Basaglia's life and political activism outside Italy. The final volume, edited with the leading psychiatrist Tom Burns, will appear as Basaglia's International Legacy with OUP in 2020, and contains contributions from a variety of historians and psychiatrists from a number of countries.
In 2018 I was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to carry out a two year research project on Italian fascism, to be published by Laterza and Bloomsbury.
in 2019 I was awarded the Serena Medal by the British Academy for eminent services towards the furtherance of the study of Italian history.
In 2020 the Polish edition of my book on Italian football won three major awards - best sports book, best history sports book and best book written in another language about sport.
I also worked as the historical consultant for a new museum in Bolzano linked to the history of a neighbourhood created by Fascism in that city in the 1930s. http://www.comune.bolzano.it/cultura_context.jsp?ID_LINK=4051&area=11
Outside academia I am interested in football (Arsenal, Plymouth Argyle and Inter), Cricket (Middlesex CCC), mountains (Trentino), cycling, wine, detective novels and books in general, films.
I have written for The Guardian and review books regularly for the TLS and History Today. I have also written for the LRB and the Independent. I write a regular blog for Internazionale magazine in Italian http://www.internazionale.it/opinioni/john-foot/