Douglas Hamilton (Sheffield Hallam University) is a historian of the British Empire in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World, with a particular focus on the Caribbean. His publications include Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic World (2005), and (as editor) Slavery, Memory and Identity (2012) and Jacobitism, Enlightenment and Empire (2014). He is currently working on a history of the Royal Navy in the eighteenth-century Caribbean.

John McAleer (University of Southampton) is a historian of the British encounter and engagement with the wider world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, situating the history of empire in its global and maritime contexts. His recent monograph, Britain's Maritime Empire: Southern Africa, the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, 1763-1820 (2016), focused on the relationship between Britain's maritime empire and the crucial strategic locations at the gateway to the Indian Ocean World. He is currently working on a history of travellers' experiences of the voyage to Asia in the age of sail.