Our guest today is the brilliant and entertaining Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy. Andrew is Professor of History at the University of Virginia and the former Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. From 2015-2022 he was the Vice President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Andrew also spent thirteen years at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he served as the Chair of the Department of History and held the Rosebush Professorship. Andrew attended Columbia University before earning a BA, MA, and PhD in History from Oriel College at Oxford University. Andrew is the author of The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University (University of Virginia Press), and is the co-editor with John Ragosta and Peter Onuf of The Founding of Thomas Jefferson’s University (University of Virginia Press) and European Friends of the American Revolution with John A. Ragosta and Marie-Jeanne Rossignol (forthcoming, University of Virginia Press). Andrew is perhaps best known for The Men Who Lost America:  British Leadership, the Revolutionary War and the Fate of Empire (Yale University Press), which won numerous awards, including the George Washington Book Prize, The Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award in US History, the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution’s Excellence in American History Book Award, and the New-York Historical Society Annual American History Book Prize. His first book, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (University of Pennsylvania), has now gone through its third printing. In addition, Andrew is widely published in many of the top journals in the field. Andrew is an award-winning teacher and he has held numerous visiting professorships and fellowships. Most recently, he was a Visiting International Fellow at the Wilberforce Institute at Hull University. In 2016-17, he was the Sons of the American Revolution Visiting Professor at King’s College, London. Andrew is a fellow of the American Antiquarian Society and, of course, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Andrew first researched in an archive when he was only 15, and has never looked back. Join us as we chat about growing up in the US and the UK, the American War for Independence, the Grenadier Guards band, hosting Presidents at Monticello, and Virginia wines!

Our guest today is the dapper, copiously quaffed, and brilliant Ian Andrew Isherwood. Ian is Associate Professor of War and Memory Studies in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at Gettysburg College. He previously served as the Assistant Director of the Civil War Institute and chair of the Civil War Era Studies program. He is currently the Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History at the US Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Ian earned his BA at Gettysburg College, his MA at Dartmouth College, and his PhD from the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Centre for War Studies.  Ian is the author of Remembering the Great War  (Bloomsbury) and the co-editor, with Steve Trout, of  Serpents of War: An American Officer's Story of World War I Combat and Captivity (forthcoming, University Press of Kansas). His articles have been published in War and Society, First World War Studies, War, Literature and the Arts, The Journal of Military History, and War in History. He is currently working on a book titled The Battalion: Citizen Soldiers on the Western Front, which is a history of a Kitchener volunteer battalion in the Great War. Ian is a member of the International Society for First World War Studies and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is also the creator and co-lead of The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs, a centennial First World War digital history project. Ian is beyond dedicated to his students. In 2019, he was recognized as the outstanding faculty mentor of undergraduate research in the humanities at Gettysburg, and he has taken his students to Europe for field research on several occasions.  Join us for a really fun and interesting chat with Ian Isherwood. We'll talk beer can collections, First World War memoirs and diaries, teaching at a liberal arts college and a major PME institution, life writing, Tom Waits, C. S. Lewis, and wearing t-shirts in public - that's a lot of ground! Shoutout to Chubby's BBQ! Rec.: 05/04/2023

Our guest today is retired British Army Major General Ashley Truluck. Ashley brings together his military experience and lover for military history in a variety of ways, including being active in the Society for Army Historical Research and battlefield tourism. He attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and holds a BA in International Studies, History, and Procurement. His many assignments and commands included time with the Royal Corps of Signals, The Brigade of Gurkhas, the 3rd Armoured Divisional Signal Regiment, and the General Staff. Ashley’s military service took him around the world, and he retired at the rank of Major General. He was awarded Companion of the Order of the Bath and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (both firsts for Military Historians are People, Too!). From 2020-2021, he served as the High Sheriff of Wiltshire (also a first!), a position he used to promote the Wiltshire Community Foundation. Ashley is an experienced sailor and traveler, and avid hill walker. Since his retirement from the military, he has held numerous administrative posts in the private sector. He is chairman of the Society for Army Historical Research, which awards the prestigious Templar Medals, and frequently serves as a battlefield tour guide for The Cultural Experience, a UK-based historical tour company. He has led tours in Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, and Malta. Finally, Ashley is involved with the Chalke Valley History Festival, which is the largest festival dedicated to history in the world. Join us for a fascinating chat about the British Army, Wellington, having James Holland for a neighbor, Napoleonic battlefields in Spain, Ed Sheeran, curry, and command and control! You can follow Ashley on Twitter @Truluck_Wilts. Shout-out to the Queen's Head in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire! Rec.: 04/20/2023

We're going nuclear today with Jayita Sarkar! Jay is a Senior Lecturer in Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow. Before settling down in Scotland, she was an Assistant Professor at Boston University and a Niehaus Fellow at Dartmouth College. She was also a Fellow with Harvard University’s Weatherhead Initiative in Global History, an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy, and a Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow, all also at Harvard. She received her Ph.D. in History from the Graduate Institute Geneva, an MA at the University of Paris IV, Sorbonne, and a BA and MA in Political Science and International Relations at Jadavpur University. Jay is the author of Ploughshares and Swords: India’s Nuclear Program in the Global Cold War (Cornell), which was a 2023 Honourable Mention for the Best Book Award of ISA Global Development Studies Section. Her articles have appeared in Cold War History, the Journal of Cold War Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Journal of Global Security Studies, among others. Her 2018 article in Nonproliferation Review entitled “U.S. Technological Collaboration for Nonproliferation: Key Evidence from the Cold War”  (With J. Krige) won the 2018 Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Award. Her second book, Atomic Capitalism: A Global History, is under contract with Princeton University Press. Jay has received grants from the Stanton Foundation, The Hoover Institution, The Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, to name just a few. She was recently granted a British Academy Award to support “Partition Machine,” an upcoming conference she has organized on territorial partitions. Jayita sits on the Editorial Board of Cold War History, the Editorial Advisory Board of Global Nuclear Histories Book Series at McGill-Queen’s University Press, and the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association. She is a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. On top of all that, she’s a polyglot who speaks Bengali, English, and French fluently with a little German, Hindu and Urdu thrown in for good measure. Join us for a delightful and really interesting chat with Jay Sarkar - we'll talk India's nuclear policy, Glasgow v. Edinburgh, Scottish Straight Cats, Diego Maradona, and Pink Martini, among many other topics! Rec.: 04/21/2023

Our guest today is Andrew J. Huebner, who clearly didn't think through the idea of recording live in the Odysea Waterfront Lounge at the Hilton Bayfront in San Diego, in the middle of the Annual Meeting of the Society for Military History! Thankfully, most military historians avoid bars, pubs, etc. (NOT!). But we had a great chat and the sound turned out ok, so thanks for your patience with the sound quality on this one! Andrew is Professor of History at the University of Alabama. He earned his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and his PhD from Brown University. Andrew was a visiting professor at Brown from 2004-2006 and a lecturer in History and English at Harvard during the same span. Since 2017, he has been an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. He is the author of Love and Death in the Great War (Oxford), which won the President’s Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era (UNC), a Nota Bene selection of Chronicle of Higher Education. He is co-editor with John Giggie of Dixie’s Great War (Alabama), and forthcoming titles The Cambridge History of War and Society in America (with Jennifer Keene), and Race and Gender at War (Alabama) with Friend-of-the-Pod Lesley Gordon. Andrew is also the co-author with Alan Brinkley and John Giggey of a popular American history textbook, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. In addition, his work has appeared in the Journal of American History, Film and History, The Sixties, American Studies, and Journalism History. His current project, Buffalo Soldiers and the Making of the United States Empire, s under contract with Liveright/W.W. Norton. Andrew has given talks all over the United States, is a frequent guest on history podcasts, and contributor and advisor to public history projects. He's a busy guy, but one of the most humble and enjoyable historians you'll come across. Join us for our chat with Andrew, as we discuss New Jersey, gender theory (or not), Modest Mouse, and even presidential aspirations, all while Andrew multi-tasks talking with us, enjoying a beer, AND watching the Alabama-San Diego State Sweet 16 match-up over our shoulders on the big bar TV (spoiler - the game didn't end well for Andrew)! As always, thanks for listening, please subscribe on whatever podcast service you use to Military Historians are People, Too, and all podcasts you enjoy, and don't forget to check out our Swag Store on Zazzle! Rec.: 03/24/2023

Our guest today is the artsy, funny, and brilliant Kate Clarke Lemay. Kate is a historian at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. She was the lead historian for the signature exhibitions America’s Presidents and Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence. and is currently curating a major exhibition titled 1898: American Imperial Visions and Revisions, which will open on April 28, 2023! Kate also serves as director of PORTAL, the National Portrait Gallery's Scholarly Center. She was Assistant Professor of Art History at Auburn University at Montgomery and Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Brigham Young University. Kate earned a BA in Art History and French from Syracuse University and a PhD in Art History and American Studies from Indiana University. Kate's publications include Triumph of the Dead: American WWII Cemeteries, Monuments and Diplomacy in France (Alabama, 2018), which was awarded a Terra Foundation in American Art publication. In 2019, she published the eponymous catalog for the Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence exhibit with Princeton University Press. The book received the 2021 Smithsonian Secretary’s Prize for Excellence in Research as well as the 2020 Amelia Bloomer Book Award from the American Library Association. Kate was a guest editor for a special issue on transatlantic diplomacy and war cemeteries for The International Journal of Military History and Historiography.  Kate is a Fulbright Scholar and her work has been supported by the Terra Foundation in American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the Caen Mémorial Museum in France. She is a Presidential Counselor to the National WWII Museum, an advisor to the National Women's Suffrage Monument Foundation, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Association of Historians of American Art’s Panorama Journal. Join us for a fun and interesting chat with Kate Lemay. We'll talk Delaware, boarding school, researching at the American Battlefield Monuments Commission offices in France, suffering Friend-of-the-Pod Brian Linn's critique of Imperial Visions and Revisions, Foo Fighters, and being BBQ-adjacent. Speaking of which, shout out to Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse, New York! As always, subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods, and check out the Swag Store on Zazzle! Rec.: 04/14/2023

Our guest today is the guitar-playing, hiking, marathon-running, American Studies guy-turned-historian David Kieran! Dave is an Associate Professor and the Colonel Richard R. Hallock Distinguished Chair in Military History at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Before coming to Columbus State, he was associate professor and chair of the history department at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA, where he also served as coordinator for the American Studies program. Dave was also a visiting assistant professor in the American Studies Department at Franklin & Marshall College and in the History Department at Skidmore College. He earned a BA in English from Connecticut College and a PhD in American Studies from George Washington University. A scholar of the post-Vietnam American military, Dave is the author of Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military’s Mental Health Crisis (NYU Press) and Forever Vietnam: How A Divisive War Changed American Public Memory (University of Massachusetts Press). He has also edited or co-edited several volumes, including The War of My Generation: Youth Culture and the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press) and At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Rutgers University Press), with Edwin A. Martini. David’s articles have been published in War & Society, the Journal of American Studies, and the Journal of War and Culture Studies, and he has contributed to numerous edited volumes. Finally, he has written for the Washington Post, Psychology Today, and Slate. His new project is tentatively titled How the Army Saved Itself: Maxwell R. Thurman and the Army’s Post-Vietnam Metamorphosis. Dave has two awesome dogs, has run over a dozen marathons, and has more guitars than Bill, which is a sore point with Bill. Join us for a great chat about interdisciplinary approaches to doing history, interviewing retired generals, running marathons, mental health issues in the American military, Bruce Springsteen, Alabama white sauce, acoustic viz electric guitars - and more! And forgive Bill's kitchen renovation noise! Military Historians have kitchens, too! Shoutout to Smoke Bourbon and BBQ in Columbus! Rec.: 04/06/2023

Our guest today is Civil War scholar Lesley Gordon. Lesley is the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama. Prior to moving to Tuscaloosa, she was a professor of history at the University of Akron, and she started her academic career at Murray State University. Lesley received her BA from the College of William and Mary, and her M.A. and PhD from the University of Georgia. Lesley’s first book General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend (UNC Press) was a History Book Club Selection. She published “This Terrible War”: The Civil War and its Aftermath with Daniel E. Sutherland and Michael Fellman in 2003 and the book is now in its third edition. In 2014, Lesley published A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War (LSU Press). She has also co-edited four volumes, including Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives, with Carol K. Bleser (Oxford), and Race and Gender at War: Writing American Military History, with Friend-of-the-Pod Andrew Huebner, which is forthcoming with the University of Alabama Press. She has also written more than a dozen essays and articles. Lesley is extremely active in her field and she is currently the president of the Society of Civil War Historians. She chairs the editorial board at the University of Alabama Press and served on the editorial board of The Journal of the Civil War Era. She is a current member of the advisory board for Civil War Times. Since 2009, Lesley has been an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. Join us for a fun and fascinating chat with Lesley Gordon. We'll talk girls drawing Civil War soldiers in middle school, being a tour guide at Mark Twain's home, sports bandwagons, Noah Wyle, writing biography, a little Alison Krause, and Daisy Joines & The Six, so tune in! Check out the MHPTPodcast Swag Store on Zazzle! Rec.: 03/14/2023

Today's guest is Martin Thomas. Martin is Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Histories of Violence and Conflict at the University of Exeter in the UK. He was also the first director of Exeter's Centre for the Study of War, State, and Society. Before joining the faculty at Exeter, Martin taught at the University of the West of England in Bristol for eleven years. He has held visiting professorships and fellowships at Sciences Po. Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies. Martin received his BA and PhD from Oxford University. Martin is the author of ten books and dozens of articles and book chapters. His many publications include The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire with co-author Andrew Thompson, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882-1956 (Oxford) with co-author Richard Toye in 2017, and The Civilianization of War: The Changing Civil–Military Divide, 1914–2014, with Andrew Barros (Cambridge). Martin's solo publications include Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and their Roads from Empire (Oxford), Violence and Colonial Order: Police, Workers, and Protest in the European Colonial Empires, 1918-40 (Cambridge), and The French Empire at War, 1940-45 (Manchester). Martin was awarded the Philip Leverhulme prize for outstanding research in 2002 and currently holds a three-year Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. He has also been a fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation. Martin has been a member of the editorial boards of the International History Review, Intelligence and National Security, Diplomacy & Statecraft, War & Society, French Historical Studies, and Cambridge’s Studies in the Social & Cultural History of Modern Warfare. Join us for a really interesting chat with Martin Thomas. We'll talk teaching global history, the nature of colonial violence, old French ladies with baskets of hand grenades, League One football, and Little Feat!  Be sure to check out the MHPTPodcast Swag Store on Zazzle!  Rec.: 03/13/2023

By popular demand, we are finally interviewing each other! Today, Bill convinced Brian to sit down with him in Bill's American Military Experience class at Georgia Southern University for a live recording, in front of students no less! Brian K. Feltman, not to be confused with the notorious other Brian Feltman from Georgia, is Professor of History (newly promoted!) at Georgia Southern University. He is a scholar of Modern Germany and the First World War and teaches courses on the same at Georgia Southern. He earned his BA and MA from Clemson University and his PhD from The Ohio State University. Brian is the author of The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyond (University of North Carolina), which won the Society for Military History’s Coffman Prize, and with Matthias Reiss co-edited Prisoners of War and Local Women in Europe and the United States, 1914-1956: Consorting with the Enemy (London: Palgrave, 2022). He has several essays in edited collections as well as articles in Gender & History, the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, and War in History. He is currently working on a book-length project titled Sacrifice on Display: The Culture of Everyday Remembrance in Germany, 1914-1933. Brian is active in the German Studies Association and the Society for Military History, and is a Fellow of the Society for First World War Studies. He has held several fellowships and grants, including the Thyssen-Heideking Postdoctoral Fellowship at the German Historical Institute & Universität zu Köln, an Albert’s Researcher Reunion Grant also at the Universität zu Köln, a Deutscher Akademischer Austaush Dienst (DAAD) Grant at the Free University of Berlin, and several research support grants from Georgia Southern University. Join us for what you asked for! We'll talk growing up in rural Upstate South Carolina, discovering German history, networking as a graduate student, and BBQ in Valdosta, Georgia, and we even let students ask some questions! Rec.: 03/22/2023

Our guest today is former journalist and now historian Vanya Eftimova Bellinger. Vanya is Assistant Professor of Strategy and Policy Development at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She previously served as an assistant professor at Air University’s Global College of Professional Military Education and a visiting assistant professor at the US Army War College. Vanya received her BA in Public Relations and Communications at Sofia University, St. Kliment Ohridski, in Sofia, Bulgaria, and her MA in Military History at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. She recently defended her dissertation for the PhD in History at King’s College, London. But before all that, Wanya spent twenty years as a journalist for Bulgarian and German media, including stints with Economedia and Bulgarian National Television, as well as a journalism fellowship at the Free University of Berlin. Vanya is the author of Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War (Oxford University Press). Her Journal of Military History article, “The Other Clausewitz: Findings from the Newly Discovered Correspondence between Marie and Carl von Clausewitz’” was awarded the Society for Military History’s Moncado Prize. She recently published “Lieber and Clausewitz: The Understanding of Modern War and the Theoretical Origins of General Orders No. 100” in the Journal of Civil War Era and “When Resources Drive Strategy: Understanding Clausewitz/Corbett’s War Limited by Contingent” in Military Strategy Magazine. Vanya sits on the Military Strategy Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Panel and frequently contributes to War on the Rocks and The Strategy Bridge.  Vanya’s journalism experience makes her an energetic go-getter. We’ll talk about growing up with ‘technical intelligentsia” parents in Bulgaria, the fame of being on a Bulgarian Sunday morning news program, working in the German archives, Bulgarian moussaka, and the band Ostava, plus a little Clausewitz. Join us for a fun and fascinating chat with Vanya Bellinger! And Check out our new @MHPTPodcast Swag Store! Rec.: 03/13/2023

Our guest today is the prolific scholar and Arsenal supporter Gary D. Sheffield. Gary is Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Institute of the University of Buckingham and Professor Emeritus at the University of Wolverhampton, where he set up the First World War Programme. He was previously Chair of War Studies at the University of Birmingham and Professor of Modern History at King's College London. He also served as Land Warfare Historian on the Higher Command and Staff Course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Gary earned his undergraduate and MA degrees in History at the University of Leeds and went on to take his PhD at King’s College, London. Gary’s list of publications is extensive. He is the author or editor of more than 15 books. His book Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities was a bestseller. Gary’s contribution to The British General Staff: Innovation and Reform earned him a share of the Templer Medal in 2003. The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army was selected as a military book of the year by The Times and shortlisted for the Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature. Among Gary’s numerous other books are Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in The British Army in the Era of the First World War, The Somme: A New History, A Short History of the First World War, and The First World War in 100 Objects. He is currently completing a project titled Civilian Armies: British and Dominions Soldiers’ Experience in the Two World Wars, which will be published by Yale University Press. Gary is a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, he sits on the Advisory Boards of the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, the Academic Advisory Panel of the National Army Museum, and the Academic Advisory Board of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust. He also served as the President of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and the Honorary President of the Western Front Association. Finally, Gary frequently appears on television and documentaries, writes for the press, and speaks to podcasters like us. We can't thank Gary enough for taking the time with us. Join us for a delightful chat about reading military history as a kid, Tony Adams, battlefield tours, curries, and Bob Dylan. You'll enjoy this one. Check out the @MHPTPodcast Swag Store! Rec.: 03/03/2023

Today's guest is David Morgan-Owen. Dave is a Reader in the History of War in the Defence Studies Department at King's College, London. From 2019-2021, he served as Academic Programme Director for the Intermediate Command and Staff Course (Land) and the MA in Military and Security Studies. He received all of his degrees from the University of Exeter and has a park bench on campus named in his honor after having spent so many years there (not really, but we could start a campaign?). He has held fellowships at the Modern War Institute at West Point, the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and the National Maritime Museum. Dave is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy. In 2016, he won the Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History. Dave's first book The Fear of Invasion: Strategy, Politics, and British War Planning, 1880-1914 (Oxford) was awarded the Templer Medal for best first book from the Society for Army Historical Research in 2017. In 2020, he co-edited with Louis Halewood Economic Warfare and the Sea: Grand Strategies for Maritime Powers (Liverpool). Dave's articles have appeared in the English Historical Review, The Journal of Modern History, War in History, and War & Society, among others. His current project examines how the First World War challenged ideas of Britain as a ‘sea power’, and what these discussions meant for the prosecution of the conflict. Dave's greatest accomplishment, however, is having convinced Season I guest Aimée Fox to become his partner, and along with Aimée is one of MHPT UK Podcast Dog Freddie's Human Feeding Units. Join us for an interesting and fun chat with David Morgan-Owen. We'll talk about rolling cannonballs on HMS Victory, being Jeremy Black's chauffeur, having tea with Sir Michael Howard, Riddle in the Sands, and Oasis, as well as some good military history. Check it out! Rec.: 02/17/2023

Our guest today is one of the leading historians of the American soldier John C. McManus. John is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of US Military History at the Missouri University of Science & Technology. He earned a BA in Sports Journalism and an MA in History from the University of Missouri, then received his PhD in History from the University of Tennessee (Bill says UT-Austin has the correct shade of orange; John, not surprisingly, disagrees). While at Tennessee, he served as the Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of War and Society and was also a participant in Tennessee's Normandy Scholars Program. John has taught at Missouri S&T for several years and in 2014 became Missouri S&T’s first Curators’ Distinguished Professor, an honor bestowed by the University of Missouri System. In 2018-2019, John was the Leo A. Shifrin Chair of Naval and Military History at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. John is the author of more than a dozen books, including: The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II; Deadly Sky: The American Combat Airman in World War II; Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers who made the Defense of Bastogne Possible; Grunts: The American Infantry Combat Experience: World War II through Iraq; September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far; The Dead and Those About to Die, D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach; and Hell Before Their Very Eyes: American Soldiers Liberate Concentration Camps in Germany, April 1945.  Most recently, John has been busy writing a trilogy on the Pacific War. The first book, Fire and Fortitude, won the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History. It was followed by Island Infernos: The US Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944. The trilogy will end with To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945, which will be published in May 2023. For us podcast nerds, John is a frequent co-host with Al Murray and James Holland on the popular We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast. Follow John on Twitter @JohnCMcManus3! Join us for a fascinating chat with John McManus. We'll discuss growing up in St. Louis, U2, writing, and toasted ravioli. Shout-out to Pappy's Smokehouse in St. Louis! Rec.: 12/19/2022

Today’s guest is historian and ballet dancer Allison Finkelstein. Allison is Senior Historian at Arlington National Cemetery. She is an alumna of the College of William and Mary and earned her PhD in History at the University of Maryland at College Park. Allison previously worked as a historian for the US Citizenship and Immigration Services History Office & Library and as a Historical Consultant for the American Battle Monuments Commission and the US Vietnam War Commemoration Office. From 2017-2018, she served as the Chair of the Arlington World War I Commemoration Task Force. In 2020, The National Alliance of Preservation Commissions (NAPC) recognized her work on the Clarendon War Memorial with the Excellence Award in Best Practices: Public Outreach/Advocacy. Allison is the author of Forgotten Veterans, Invisible Memorials: How American Women Commemorated the Great War, 1917-1945, which is part of GFOP Steve Trout’s War, Memory, and Culture Series at the University of Alabama Press. The book won the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference’s 2022 Arline Custer Memorial Award for the best book written in the Mid-Atlantic region. Her articles have been published in Buildings & Landscapes: The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum and World War I Remembered, the National Park Service’s book of essays on the First World War. Allison and her work have been featured in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and she has appeared on several media outlets. Join us for a feel-good chat with Allison as we discuss growing up visiting battlefields in Virginia, public history, Gilbert & Sullivan, being in the recent Kennedy Center production of Giselle, and a singer-to-listen-to-for-the-rest-of-your-life choice that caused Brian and Bill to fall out of their chairs! Shoutout to Rocklands BBQ in Alexandria and Pierce's BBQ in Williamsburg! Rec.: 02/16/2023

Our guest today is Ricardo Herrera. Rick is a Visiting Professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He received his BA from the University of California, Los Angeles (also known as UCLA) and his PhD in History from Marquette University. Before joining the Army War College, Rick was Professor of Military History in the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) at the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He also served six years at the Combat Studies Institute of the US Army Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth. Rick has had a long career in professional military education, but he began as an Assistant Professor of History and then as Chair of the Department of History and Geography at Texas Lutheran University in Seguin, Texas. He moved on to Ohio, serving as an Assistant Professor of History at Mount Union College. But before all of that, Rick served as an Armor and Cavalry officer in the US Army. Rick is the author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 (University of North Carolina Press). His first book, Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861, appeared with New York University Press. He is currently editing a collection of letters and a journal tentatively titled A Most Uncommon Soldier: The Letters and Journal of Edward Ashley Bowen Phelps, 1846-1848, which will be published with the University Press of Kansas. In addition, Rick has published numerous book chapters and prize-winning articles. If you want to know how to apply for research fellowships, ask Rick; he’s received a bucket-full. In 2021-2022, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Maynooth University Arts & Humanities Institute at the National University of Ireland. He was a Residential Research Fellow at The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington in Mount Vernon, Virginia, from 2016-2017. Rick held a Residential Research Fellowship at the David Library of the American Revolution in 2014-2015 and a Society for the History of the Early American Republic/Mellon Faculty Research Stipend in Early American History in 2005. In 2020, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society - we think that’s a big deal. Join us for a wonderful chat with Rick about growing up in LA, Woody Strode, George Washington, leading staff rides, The Blasters, and what makes a proper Manhattan! Shoutout to Q39 BBQ in Kansas City! Rec.: 02/09/2023

Our guest today is Dr. Anna Lois McKay (that's pronounced McKai!). Anna is the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Liverpool, where she is working on a project titled "Prisoners’ Progress: Imperial Circulations of War Captives, 1793–1815.” She is a specialist on 18th-Century prison hulks, prisoners of war, and forced migration. In 2021-22, Anna was a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of English at University College Cork. She was the Alan Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History at the Institute of Historical Research, London in 2020-2021. She earned a BA in English and Related Literature from the University of York in 2012, and an MA in 18th-Century Studies also from the University of York in 2014. Her PhD, awarded in 2020, was an Arts and Humanities Research Council joint project between the University of Leicester and the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Anna is the author of "‘Allowed to die’? Prison Hulks, Convict Corpses and the Inquiry of 1847,” which appeared in Cultural and Social History in May 2021 and won the Royal Historical Society's Alexander Prize in 2022. Her article “Floating Hell” was published in BBC History Magazine in September 2022. Her work has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the European Research Council, the Society for Nautical Research, and the Economic History society. Anna is an Early Career Member of the Royal Historical Society and has been awarded The Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions awarded her a Postdoctoral Fellowship Seal of Excellence. Anna has conducted archival research in the United Kingdom, Australia, Bermuda, and Canada, and her work has allowed her to conduct fieldwork in dockyards, prisoner-of-war depots, and penal colony sites around the world. We'll discuss prisoner theater, writing a play, the nomad-like existence of post-docs in the UK, chess-boxing, Peaky Blinders, among many other topics. Join us for a fun and fascinating talk with Anna McKay! Rec.: 12/02/2022

Today's guest is the prolific, experienced, fan of the Rolling Stones and recently announced 2023 Society for Military History Samuel Eliot Morrison awardee Brian McAllister Linn! Brian is Professor of History and Ralph R. Thomas Class of 1921 Professor in Liberal Arts at Texas A&M University. Brian has been at Texas A&M since 1989, but he had visiting positions at Old Dominion and Nebraska before landing in College Station. He attended the University of Hawaii for his BA and earned his MA and PhD at The Ohio State University.  Brian has held far too many fellowships to mention them all, but here are some of his recent accomplishments: He was a Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences Fellow in 2019, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow in 2018-2019, and a Fulbright Distinguished Professor at the University of Birmingham in the UK in 2016. Brian also held a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson International Center Fellowship, and a Bosch Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin.  To say that Brian is a prolific scholar is an understatement. In 2016 he published Elvis’s Army: Cold War GIs and the Atomic Battlefield (Harvard), which won the US Army Historical Foundation's Best Book Award and US Military History Group's Captain Richard Lukaszewicz Memorial Book Award. The Society for Military History has recognized Brian's work with its prestigious Distinguished Book Prize twice: for The Philippine War, 1899-1902 and Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific, 1902-1940 (which also won the US Army Historical Foundation's Best Book Award). His most recent book, Real Soldiering: The U.S. Army in the Aftermath of War, 1815-1940, will be published by the University Press of Kansas in 2023. Brian has also published more than 40 essays, chapters, and articles, including the just-published “Forty Years On: Master Narratives and US Military History (War & Society, 2022), which includes a shout-out to Military Historians are People, Too! Brian’s service to the profession has been immense. He currently sits on the editorial boards of Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History, War and Society, and the Journal of Strategic Studies. Brian is a past president and trustee of the Society for Military History, which recognized his service with its Edwin M. Simmons Memorial Service Award in 2012. We'll talk Hawaii, the state of military history today, Gaylord Perry, Stones versus Beatles, and Fulbright-ing. Join us for a much-anticipated chat with Brian Linn! And a big shout-out to Carney's Pub in Bryan, Texas! Rec.: 12/02/2022

Our guest today is Dr. Erin R. McCoy, and we are talking with her live from the campus of the University of South Carolina-Beaufort! Erin is an Associate Professor of English & Interdisciplinary Studies and is a past Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at USC-Beaufort. Erin earned a BA in English from Wingate University, located in the conveniently named town of Wingate, North Carolina. She has an MA in English from Clemson University and a PhD in Humanities from the University of Louisville. Before coming to USC-Beaufort, she held visiting and adjunct positions at USC-Upstate, Indiana University Southeast, and Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville.  Erin is the author of Tour of War: A Cultural Historiography of the Viet Nam War. In addition, she has published more than a dozen peer-reviewed articles and essays and she is a prolific writer of fiction and poetry. Erin has received the USC Research Initiative for Summer Engagement award on several occasions. In 2015 she won the award for “Wounds of War: Healing from the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia, in 2017 “Exploring War: Healing from the Vietnam War in Australia,” and in 2019 “Tours of War: Completing an Introductory Cultural History of the Viet Nam War.” In 2020, she was awarded the James R. Bennett Award for Literature and Peace by the College English Association. Erin is popular with the students here at USC-Beaufort. In 2016 she was recognized as the Faculty Advisor of the Year (SSV/Student Life), in 2015 she was the Professor of the Year, and she also serves as the Faculty Advisor for the Sand Shark Veterans Association on campus. Since coming to USCB, she has advised more than 60 undergraduate theses.  If you want to know more about the Vietnam War and popular culture, then Erin is your go-to source. We'll talk about traveling in Vietnam, trip tattoos, English viz History, Guess Who, Randy Travis, and much more. We are thrilled to be here at USC-Beaufort to kick off Season 3 of Military Historians are People, Too - join us for a fun chat with the equally fun Erin McCoy! Rec.: 11/14/2022

Welcome to the final episode of Season 2 and our 50th overall episode! We can’t thank all of you enough for listening to, sharing, subscribing to, and supporting Military Historians are People, Too! As we often say, we’ll keep doing it if you keep listening. Season 3 is coming at the end of January! Our special 50th-episode guest is Gregory A. Daddis, who has been bugging us for months to be on the show. Greg is the USS Midway Chair in Modern US Military History and the Director of the Center for War and Society at San Diego State University. Before taking the position at Sand Diego State, he spent five years just north up the California coast at Chapman University, where he was Professor of History and Director of the MA Program in War & Society. Greg earned a BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he commissioned armor. While in uniform, Greg earned his MA in History from Villanova University and his PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill, working under the expert guidance of Prof. Dick Kohn. While at UNC, he was also Professor of Military Science and led UNC’s ROTC program. Greg served for 26 years in the Army, retiring as a colonel. He is a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and was awarded the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, and the Meritorious Service Medal during his time in uniform. Greg wrapped up his Army career serving as the Chief of the American History Division in the Department of History at West Point. Since leaving West Point, Greg has positioned himself as one of the leading historians of the Vietnam War. He is the author of five books, including most recently Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (Cambridge). He authored a trilogy on the American war in Vietnam with Oxford University Press: No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War, Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam, and Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam. His first book was Fighting in the Great Crusade: An 8th Infantry Artillery Officer in World War II (Louisiana State University Press). Greg’s articles have been published in the major journals in the field, including The Journal of Strategic Studies, The Journal of Cold War Studies, and The Journal of Military History. He has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among other media outlets. Greg was also an adviser to Florentine Films for Ken Burns-Lynn Novick’s documentary, The Vietnam War, which appeared in 2017. We could go on, and on, and on, and even mention Greg’s upcoming research Fulbright to Oxford University in Spring 2023, but we won’t. You’ll not find a more generous, affable, California-Hipster-dressed scholar in the military history community. We’ll talk New Jersey, a grandfather’s WW2 footlocker, the Beatles, gender theory, Batman (the 1966 TV series!), and much more in between. Also - special 50th-episode guest appearances! Join us for a delightful and thoughtful chat with Greg Daddis! Rec.: 12/09/2022