After completing his doctoral research in military history at Oxford University, Malcolm Cooper held a research fellowship at Downing College, Cambridge where he completed a study of British air policy during World War I, before transferring his attention to maritime history, spending a year teaching at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. After a two-decade career in financial services in the City of London, he returned to maritime, naval, and military history research and writing. He has published a series of fleet histories of nineteenth and twentieth century shipping companies.