Briton Cooper Busch was a specialist in nineteenth century British diplomatic history, military history, and American maritime history at Colgate University. For more than a decade, he was a leading figure in the field of maritime history in the United States, particularly with the North American Society for Oceanic History, where he served as a member of the executive council in 1983-1988; chairman of the book awards committee from 1987 to 1992; vice president 1991-92; and president, 1991-1992 and 1995-1998.

Publications
Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1894-1914, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1967.
Britain, India, and the Arabs, 1914-1921, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1971.
Mudros to Lausanne : Britain's frontier in West Asia, 1918-1923, Albany : State University of New York Press, 1976.
Hardinge of Penshurst: a study of the old diplomacy, Hamden, Conn.: Published for the Conference on British Studies and Indiana University at South Bend by Archon Books, 1980.
Master of Desolation: the reminiscences of Capt. Joseph J. Fuller, edited, with introd. and notes by Briton Cooper Busch. Mystic, Conn. : Mystic Seaport Museum, 1980.
Alta California 1840-1842: the journal and observations of William Dane Phelps, master of the ship "Alert", introduced and edited by Briton Cooper Busch. Glendale, Calif. : A.H. Clark Co., 1983.
The war against the seals: a history of the North American seal fishery, Kingston [Ont.] : McGill-Queen's University Press ; Gloucester [Gloucestershire] : A. Sutton, 1985.
Frémont's private Navy: the 1846 journal of captain William Dane Phelps, edited with introduction by Briton Cooper Busch. Glendale, Calif. : A.H. Clark Co., 1987.
Whaling will never do for me: the American whaleman in the nineteenth century, Lexington, Ky. : University Press of Kentucky, 1994.
Fur traders from New England: the Boston men in the North Pacific, 1787-1800: the narratives of William Dane Phelps, William Sturgis, and James Gilchrist Swan edited, with notes and introduction by Briton C. Busch and Barry M. Gough. Spokane, Wash.: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1997.
Canada and the Great War: Western Front Association papers, edited by Briton C. Busch. Montreal ; Ithaca : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003.
Bunker Hill to Bastogne: elite forces and American society, Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2006.