Dr Seldon has written or edited over 40 books on politics, history and education.
Published books and booklets include:
- Churchill’s Indian Summer: The Conservative Government, 1951-55 (Hodder & Stoughton, 1981)
- By Word of Mouth: Elite Oral History (with Joanna Pappworth, Methuen, 1983)
- Ruling Performance: Governments since 1945 (ed., with Peter Hennessy, Blackwell, 1987)
- Political Parties Since 1945 (ed., Philip Allan, 1988)
- The Thatcher Effect (ed., with Dennis Kavanagh, Oxford Paperbacks, 1989)
- Politics UK (Joint author, Philip Allan, 1991)
- Conservative Century (ed., with Stuart Ball, Oxford University Press, 1994)
- The Major Effect (ed., with Dennis Kavanagh, Macmillan, 1994)
- The Heath Government 1970-1974 (ed., with Stuart Ball, Routledge, 1996)
- The Contemporary History Handbook (ed., with Brian Brivati etc, Manchester University Press, 1996)
- The Ideas that Shaped Post-war Britain (ed., with David Marquand, Fontana Press, 1996)
- How Tory Governments Fall (ed., Fontana, 1997)
- Major: A Political Life (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997)
- 10 Downing Street: An Illustrated History (HarperCollins Illustrated, 1999)
- The Powers Behind the Prime Minister (with Dennis Kavanagh, HarperCollins, 1999)
- Britain under Thatcher (with Daniel Collings, Routledge, 2000)
- The Foreign Office: An Illustrated History (HarperCollins Illustrated, 2000)
- A New Conservative Century (with Peter Snowdon, Centre for Policy Studies, 2001)
- The Blair Effect 1997-2001 (ed., Little, Brown, 2001)
- Public and Private Education: The Divide Must End (Social Market Foundation, 2001)
- Partnership not Paternalism (Institute for Public Policy Research, 2002)
- Brave New City: Brighton & Hove, Past, Present, Future (Pomegranate Press, 2002)
- The Conservative Party: An Illustrated History (with Peter Snowdon, Sutton Press, 2004)
- New Labour, Old Labour: The Labour Government, 1974-79 (ed., with Kevin Hickson, Routledge, 2004)
- Blair: The Biography, Vol I (Free Press, 2004)
- The Blair Effect 2001-05 (ed., with Dennis Kavanagh, Cambridge University Press, 2005)
- Recovering Power: The Conservatives in Opposition since 1867 (ed., with Stuart Ball, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
- Blair Unbound: The Biography, Vol II (with Peter Snowdon and Daniel Collings, Simon & Schuster, 2007)
- Blair’s Britain 1997-2007 (ed., Cambridge University Press, 2007)
- Trust: How We Lost it and How to Get It Back (Biteback Publishing, 2009)
- An End to Factory Schools (Centre for Policy Studies, 2009)
- Why Schools, Why Universities? (Cass, 2010)
- Brown at 10 (with Guy Lodge, Biteback Publishing, 2011)
- Public Schools and the Great War (with David Walsh, Pen & Sword Military, 2013)
- Schools United (Social Market Foundation, 2014)
- The Architecture of Diplomacy: The British Ambassador's Residence in Washington (with Daniel Collings, Flammarion, 2014)
- Beyond Happiness: The Trap of Happiness and How to Find Deeper Meaning and Joy (Yellow Kite, 2015)
- The Coalition Effect, 2010-2015 (ed., with Mike Finn, Cambridge University Press, 2015)
- Cameron at 10 (with Peter Snowdon, William Collins, 2015), Cameron at 10: The Verdict (William Collins, 2016)
- The Cabinet Office 1916-2016 – The Birth of Modern British Government (with Jonathan Meakin, BiteBack Publishing, 2016)