“I knew Alan through contact with him between panels and at dinners at conferences of the Transatlantic Studies Association, before Covid, and also as a peer reviewer for him in the International Historical Review. I’ll always remember him as a true gentleman and as a friendly and collegial historian. Rest in peace, Alan. ”

“It was an honor and a joy to have known Alan. His scholarship, leadership of TSA, and editing of two important journals set and satisfied the highest standards. By the example of his work, he inspired me, as he did countless others. He was also a gentleman, gracious, considerate, and warm. Invariably, in his presence, I knew that I was in the company of a man with big heart and superior mind. With him I also enjoyed the solidarity common to grandfathers. The book that he composed for his grandchildren now enjoys pride of place in my granddaughter’s book shelf. Through that book, she will know something of the man that I admired. ”

“I’m deeply saddened by Alan’s death. I think I first met him at the TSA Conference in Canterbury, but maybe it was some time before that, at a different conference. Anyway, when I went to Canterbury I was new to TSA and he was very friendly and made me feel really welcome. I was invited to sit at his table for the closing dinner. We kept in touch ever since, and every now and then there was an email from Alan wondering how I was doing and if I was interested in contributing something to the journal or to the TSA conference. I was able to do so a number of times. Unfortunately, health problems kept me from participating in the Lancaster conference in 2019 for which he had asked me to organize a panel. Typically, Alan sent me a `get well soon’ note. I am sure many people will be touched by his passing. My thoughts go out to his family and friends. Thank you, Alan.
”

“I first spoke to Alan after reading his first work on US Wartime Aid to Britain, based upon his PhD thesis. The quality of this work, and his personal engagement with me which followed, immediately struck me and persuaded me that his was the lead to follow and I believe most of his students across the world felt and still feel the same way. Even after those pub discussions where some trenchant opinions ranging across history, politics, philosophy and ethics to the under-appreciated genius of Leonard Cohen were expressed.

I became one of Alan’s PhD students from 2005-10, and subsequently a teaching colleague at Dundee and St Andrews. In both cases I took over Alan’s teaching, which confirmed what I had already learned as one of his students - that Alan set the highest standards of rigorous scholarship while at the same time making himself approachable and encouraging to students at all levels. I know he valued the positive impact he had on his students, and he was right to do so. He took his responsibilities seriously, and I witnessed him defending the interests of colleagues and students (including myself) more than once when I know others might not have done so.

As a contributor (and sometime conference-organising henchman) alongside Alan at the Transatlantic Studies Association, I experienced Alan’s organisational genius, which extended along a full spectrum from ‘guided democracy’ to genuinely personal consideration for all attendees, and especially for the young and inexperienced. Alan’s drive and decisiveness got things done, for others more than himself. If the TSA maintains its traditions of welcoming warmth alongside hosting provoking and inspiring scholarship, this owes much to Alan’s personal example and influence.

Alan’s published works and his editorship of the Journal of Transatlantic Studies will remain to demonstrate his abiding commitment to increasing knowledge and understanding as a historian of international diplomacy, American foreign policy and civil aviation. But more personally I will not forget his sense of humour, perhaps best illustrated for me when he described a conference presentation on the works of W. E. Johns (the creator of his life-long fictional hero, Biggles) as the summit of his academic career. Beyond his substantial academic achievements, he added value to life and I remain glad that I knew both the academic and the man.

Alan was a man of the highest integrity, a generous mentor and a good friend. ”

“To the memory of Alan Dobson, a long-term colleague and friend, whose high standards and dedication to the advancement of scholarship benefited so many of us. You will be sorely missed!”

“I was greatly saddened to learn of the passing of Alan Dobson. I knew Alan through his outstanding scholarship and academic reputation long before I had the opportunity to meet him personally through the Transatlantic Studies Association (TSA). I admit to being somewhat awestruck at that first meeting, but quickly learned that he was a genuinely gracious and generous person supportive of students and colleagues in the field. The transnational and interdisciplinary community of the TSA owes much to his vision, character and organizational abilities, as does the intellectual vigor and fellowship evident at its gatherings. It is a fitting testament to a true scholar and a gentleman.”

“I met Alan Dobson for the first time at the Transatlantic Studies Association Conference in Newcastle, in 2013. He was committed to excellence and he contributed important books in the fields of Anglo-American relations and Transatlantic studies that will remain points of reference. He was keen to expand participation in the Journal of Transatlantic Studies. I was honoured to work with him as a reviewer for the International History Review and as a member of the board of the JTS. He was a remarkable man and a distinguished colleague and he will be missed. ”

“It goes without saying that Alan was well known to all of us in the field of transatlantic studies. Indeed, it would be hard to overstate his scholarly and professional contributions in this arena. On a more personal level, anyone who had the pleasure of speaking with Alan was sure to find him collegial, clever, and kind — about as good a combination as one can hope for. I always enjoyed chatting with him at the annual TSA gathering (including getting his invaluable advice on places to visit in the UK), and further appreciated working with him from a distance on various aspects of the JTS and IHR journals. He will be missed. My condolences to the Dobson family. ”

“I first met Alan at the 2005 TSA in Nottingham. Over the years, until the pandemic hit, we would see each other regularly at the TSA. I found him from the very beginning to be a welcoming and reassuring source of support. He became a good friend, and engaged me in a number of his research collaborations, often on some aspect of the Anglo-American special relationship. Like all good leaders, Alan could bring out the best in those with whom he worked. Apart from finding him to be a superb scholar, I also thought him a wonderful manager of scholars who, more often than not, reveal themselves to be not completely attentive to the taking of instruction or the following of “orders.” He had a charming way of making folks, eventually, fall in line with the desired direction, getting them to agree, eventually and happily, that Alan’s position was actually theirs, all along! I had always thought that had he not gone into the academic realm, he would have made a great politician. He will be dearly missed. ”

“Alan was a real source of inspiration for his broad range of interests and activities and he will be greatly missed by all those who knew him. ”

“Alan really was both a gentleman and scholar. He will be sorely missed.”

“I have very fond memories of meeting Alan (and Bev) at conferences. He was always incredibly supportive and generous with his time - from writing references, helping with publications, general encouragement, etc. I have no doubt that I am not the only academic who feels like they owe a huge debt of thanks to Alan. He will much missed.”

“It was Alan who got me involved in the TSA around the time it was set up and, as editor of the JTS, he was always supportive to me when I submitted articles. He was a stalwart of the TSA and the conferences won’t be the same without him.”

“As have many colleagues I am sure, I have very fond memories of Alan, whether at conferences or in the context of the JTS. Alan was a very fine colleague who has been instrumental in promoting our field, not least through the Journal, and a wonderful person. He will be very saddly missed by our whole community. ”

“Alan was such a driving force and light in our profession and helped us all in so many ways. ”

“I am sorry to hear the news of Alan Dobson’s death. The community of scholars focused upon TransAtlantic issues has lost a major and foundational scholar. ”

“I can’t believe we lost Alan. I met him for the first time in 2008, after taking a train from London to Dundee right after he replied positively to me about a meeting. Since then, he has been a mentor and my thesis would not be possible without his advices and suggestions.”

“My last memories of him are happy and grateful ones of when he helped Joel Sokolsky and me by shepherding our manuscript into the TSA series. No doubt we all especially regret that Alan could not make it to to Canterbury, now that the TSA will be meeting in person again.”

“A lot of good memories come to my mind in this very moment starting with our very first encounter in Tampere, Finland, in a conference organized by Jusi Hanhimaki. He was always very kind and supportive to me and my work.”

“I’m devastated. He was kind and supportive and I considered him a real friend. TSA won’t be the same without him.”

“Alan was above all a friendly and warm human being who happened also to be a wonderful colleague. He is greatly missed. ”

“A terrible loss! Thank you for founding the TSA and JTS. You will not be forgotten.”

“Alan Dobson was more than a colleague. He was a friend, always attentive, polite and corteous and a mentor, encouraging the younger ones to pursue their dreams. We are very grateful for the help and support he gave to the Center for International Studies, at ISCTE-Lisbon. ”

“It is hard to express how deeply the news of Alan’s passing affected me. Working with him very intensively during the last four years, whenever I open my computer he’s with me. Copy-editing my monograph on East-West aviation as well as the forthcoming volume “Technological Innovation, Globalization and the Cold War: A Transnational History” which I co-edited with Wolfgang Mueller. It makes me very sad that I won’t be able to give him a copy and tell him how much we both appreciate all the work he had done in making this volume. Alan, you are sorely missed and we want to thank you for all your support and encouragement during the last couple of years. But you still live in your books and articles and you will be a source of inspiration for dozens of aviation historians in the future. And you still live in our memories. Thank you very much for everything. Fly high, fly safe. ”

“I always thought of Alan Dobson not only as a recognised scholar and inspiring lecturer, but also as a special friend. Having come to know him through the good offices of my colleague Joe McKinney, through attendance at TSA meetings, and through Alan’s semester as a visiting scholar at Joe’s and my institution, however, I came to realize that Alan had that rare quality of treating everyone with whom he came into contact with a courtesy, a kindness, an honesty, and a supportiveness that brought us all to look upon him as a special friend. His good humor, his intellectual integrity, and his warm fellowship made him a friend to all. Happy are those who leave behind as many sorrowing friends as Alan Dobson has done. ”

“Having known Alan for around 17 years through the TSA I cannot honestly say that we always saw eye to eye. Being different in our approach to much meant that we could find our conversations at times a little awkward. However, I should also say that in spite of this I owe Alan much. His creation, development and onward progression of the TSA afforded me -and people like me - the opportunity, which I would never have received elsewhere, in developing my own understanding of the shared topics that have become my unexpected but joyful late career. He was clearly a thinking man that cared much about his work and the Association he founded. For that I shall miss him. Finally, I’m not sure I really took the opportunity to thank him when I should have so belated but meaningfully I do now - Thank you Alan - Sleep Peacefully. Kindest KK”

“I was a colleague of Alan Dobson during his time at the University of Dundee. We soon made friends and he recruited me into his efforts to establish the TSA. I eventually became the TSA Treasurer for a time. Alan was someone who was always willing to help out and support his colleagues, and with his encouragement I contributed to the output of the TSA journal and a few of his edited books. It has been a privilege to be able to know him, and I shall miss his cheerful countenance and friendly greeting! ”

“I first encountered Alan in 1985 when I was a newly-minted editor at Croom Helm, and signed him up for his book ‘U.S. Wartime Aid to Britain 1940-1946’, a fact that I confess I’d forgotten until we met in 2018, with Steve Marsh, to discuss what is now the McGill-Queen’s Transatlantic Studies series. So, this has in a sense been a long association, but at the same time all-too short. Alan was a prolific scholar, but as a publisher I can add that he was business-like, firm - and a great pleasure to deal with. He delivered the goods in no uncertain terms, and having now read his obituary I can see that this was always the case. He will be greatly missed. ”

“I first met Alan Dobson in 2007 when he participated in a conference about the impact of American airbases in Europe, in Santa Maria island - Azores. He was an inspiration on how he put the molecules of reality on major trends, always with such a human touch, and that made me return to my academic path. After this, we had the chance to meet again in 2014, where we organized a conference on the 70th anniversary of the Chicago Convention; in 2015 on the conference “Aviators-Writers, Writers-Aviators” where he visited his memories of reading Capt. W. E. Johns and how this might have led him to study aviation history; and in 2017 on the conference and book for which he contributed the title - and much, much more: “Aviation: the Impact on Time and Space”. I’m honored to have had the chance to appreciate his human qualities and to have been able to collaborate with him, both individually and in the events of the Association LPAZ, to which Alan always showed warming support. Alan will always be an inspiration for all who worked and shared moments with him. To his family and Mrs. Beverly Dobson in particular my deepest thoughts.”

“I first met Alan at the inaugural TSA Conference at the University of Dundee in July 2001. Already a leading scholar in the field of Anglo-American relations, the TSA was largely his brainchild and it was exactly the kind of academic association that I was looking for as I resumed my academic career and research focus after a lengthy spell as a senior university administrator. I soon got to know Alan and his enthusiastic commitment to transatlantic studies, broadly defined, and was very happy to accept his invitation as Chair of the TSA to take on the role of Secretary, while David Ryan served as Vice Chair and Tony Jackson as Treasurer. From that time onwards, until his untimely death earlier this year, Alan was unfailingly supportive of my research and career as he was of countless other members of the TSA. In addition, he was a first-rate scholar who produced an impressive body of work both in his own right and in collaboration with other colleagues, especially, of course, Steve Marsh. Last, but not least, for those who got to know him well he was an enormously kind and generous friend. He will be sorely missed, but hopefully the tremendous regard and affection in which Alan was held by his friends and colleagues within the TSA will be of some consolation to his wife, Bev, and to his family.”

“Alan was one of the towering figures in our field and well-known to me before I had even met him. Heidi and Alan were at the Nobel Institute in Oslo at the same time, and I heard more of his generous character – he commented extensively on Heidi’s work and research proposals. Eventually, we met in Swansea in 2000 and soon after we worked on both the Journal of Transatlantic Studies and the Transatlantic Studies Association. Alan moved our professional friendship onto another level very quickly, and I would witness this many times with other people over the decades. He was warm, open, and generous with his time, his consideration and his on-going contact. Collaboration was a perennial condition. On most occasions, in conversation, he would update us on his family. We heard about them often and eventually met them in Scotland, the United States, Ireland and Wales. We exchanged ideas and wrote often, we swapped recipes and gardening tips. A testament to his generosity was his constant friendship, openness, time and concern. He was a rare character with deep levels of thought and consideration. He achieved so much and brought this community together through these annual conferences that drew in concentric circles of many friendships. David Ryan & Heidi Storeheier ”

“While Alan and I were in very different fields of study, he welcomed me into the TSA and encouraged my publication and editorial work for JTS. He was unfailingly warm and gracious. Sadly, one of our last interactions was in January when he reached out about some JTS business right after my father’s death. His sincere and heartfelt condolences meant so much to me. I can only hope these words are a small comfort to his family. ”

“My first contact with Alan came when I had just finished my Ph.D dissertation. Warren Kimball - my external examiner - urged me to send it to Alan, whom I had never met but who was familiar to me through his work ‘US Wartime Aid to Britain’. In those days - roughly 25 years ago - no one had ever heard of a PDF file, so I boxed up a hard copy of the manuscript and sent it off to Professor Dobson in the hope that he might read it and offer a few suggestions on how I might improve the work. It was only a month or two later that I received a reply from Alan - not in the form of a letter with “a few suggestions” - but in a carefully marked up version of the entire manuscript, with helpful comments, probing questions, and sage advice on how I might improve the work scattered throughout its many pages. What’s more, any anxiety I had about how Professor Dobson might critique the work soon vanished, as the tone of his remarks made it obvious that his primary motivation in taking the time to review the manuscript stemmed from his desire to offer support and encouragement to a newly minted PhD graduate. In the years since, I have come to know Alan not only as a wonderful colleague, but as a good friend, starting with our first meeting at the inaugural TSA conference, and in the year after year encounters we had at the TSA summer gatherings. As many of my colleagues will attest, academic conferences are often somewhat dry events. But this was never the case at Alan’s TSA meetings, replete with wonderful dinners, bagpipe and other musical performances, tours of historic sites, and of course whisky tastings. Indeed the warmth and good humor with which Alan infused the TSA meetings led to a number of occasions where my wife Meliza decided to accompany me to the conference. It was at one of these occurrences in Dundee, where Alan coaxed Meliza (who is a tee totaler) to try Scottish whisky for the first - and only - time. Ever since she has affectionately referred to Professor Dobson as “whisky Alan.” As the parents of three daughters, Meliza and I also enjoyed the times we spent with Alan and Bev, sharing stories about the joys and tribulations of parenthood - and in more recent years, of grandparenthood. We will dearly miss “whisky Alan,” but it is encouraging to see how his legacy will continue to live on through the many lives he has touched on both sides of the Atlantic. ”

“I first met Alan when I attended the 2007 TSA conference in Cork, hosted by David Ryan. This was the first conference I attended as a PhD student and it saved me a lot of trouble, because by the end of the meeting it was clear I had found my ‘academic home’. Besides the stimulating intellectual content, the thing that struck me most about the TSA was the friendly and inclusive nature of the association. More than anyone else, Alan created this atmosphere. I met Alan again when he examined my PhD viva, which was a slightly less friendly occasion, but all turned out well. It was clear to me of course by this stage that he was an outstanding scholar who influenced me and many others a great deal. I subsequently worked closely with Alan through the TSA, JTS and other ventures. He became an important mentor, who I turned to for advice on many occasions, and a good friend. I shall miss him enormously – his calm, reassuring presence, his sharpness of mind, but perhaps most of all, his mischievous sense of humour. ”

“I first met Alan Dobson at the 2007 TSA meeting in Cork. Shortly thereafter Alan asked me to serve as co-chair for conference panels on literature and the arts, an expansion of the scope of the organization that reflected his commitment to interdisciplinarity. He also expanded the boundaries of transatlanticism well beyond its Anglo-American variant. The breadth of Alan’s vision was on full display in the pages of the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, which he founded and on which I have served as a senior associate editor along with David Ryan and Steve Marsh. With the entire TSA family I mourn the loss of our dear friend and colleague Alan whose kindness, integrity, and joie de vivre will long be remembered. In “The Municipal Museum Visited” Yeats asks not to be judged by his books alone but to “Think where man’s glory begins and ends, / And say my glory is that I had such friends.” Of Alan we likewise can say our glory is that we had such a friend.”

“I first met Alan thanks to Steve Marsh, who co-opted me in the TSA network upon finishing my PhD at Cardiff University. Throughout the years Alan was an invaluable source of inspiration, a great motivator and a genuine friend. His academic and human qualities made him a rare, if not unique, mentor for many of us who were welcome in the broad TSA family at a young age and continued to grow within it. Together with his intellectual guidance, constant encouragement and thorough support, which he continued to provide until the last days of his life, he left a legacy that will continue to live with us. ”