The Modern Scholar Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Modern Scholar Podcast
Welcome to the Modern Scholar podcast!
All around the world there are individuals doing great things - asking great questions, conducting meaningful research, innovating, and building better communities. This series brings together all of these things, interviewing librarians, scholars, and community leaders who are not only performing cutting edge work, but share the same passion for educating, encouraging, and empowering those around them. I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you’ll subscribe as we build a community of modern scholars, just like you.
Are you ready? Let’s do this!
Today we are celebrating EPISODE ONE HUNDRED of The Modern Scholar Podcast!
It's hard to believe we are here already, and thanks goes out to all the wonderful guests and the great conversations that have characterized this series.
Today the fun continues with a brief look at how to get the most out of the academic conference experience—definitely an episode to share with your students—followed by some very generous cameos from previous guests helping to celebrate 100 episodes!
Enjoy!
Join me for a little bit of a different episode this week as we mark Episode 99 with a Q&A, some brief cameos from previous guests, and a quick reminder about National Library Week coming up April 7-13!
David Johnson has been a proud Fayetteville community member for over 20 years. Originally from Little Rock, he received his undergraduate and masters degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and his Master of Library Science degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In 2012, he returned to the nationally recognized Fayetteville Public Library after fifteen years with Tyson Foods where he held various leadership positions in information systems, sales and marketing, and research and development.
Along with the wonderful staff at the library, Johnson shares a passion and enthusiasm for serving his community, and strives to provide exceptional library programs and services that Fayetteville citizens deserve and expect. The Fayetteville Public Library was named “Library of the Year” in 2005 by Library Journal and serves the residents of Fayetteville, Washington County, and Northwest Arkansas.
Due to the incredible growth of the Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas region, FPL underwent a large expansion project that was completed in January 2021 and doubled the size of the library to 190,000 square feet The expansion includes the addition of an expanded youth department, the Teaching Kitchen, Center for Innovation, Event Center, Art and Movement Room, and much more!
John Amble is the Editorial Director of the Modern War Institute at West Point and Co-Director of the Urban Warfare Project. He is also a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserve and a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Before assuming his current role, John served as managing editor of War on the Rocks, a digital media outlet featuring commentary on global security, foreign affairs, and strategy. He holds a BA from the University of Minnesota and an MA in Intelligence and International Security from King’s College London, where he also conducted PhD research in the Middle Eastern Studies program. He has been featured in print and broadcast media in the United States, Canada, and the Middle East, and his work has appeared in various academic journals and other outlets. He also is the co-editor of Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict, which was released by Potomac Books in 2018. He researches and writes primarily on terrorism, intelligence, the Middle East, and the military. We should note, the views that John shares with us today are his alone and do not necessarily represent West Point, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
M. Girard Dorsey is Professor of History, Program Coordinator of Justice Studies, and core faculty of Medical Humanities, Society, & Ethics at the University of New Hampshire, focusing on military and medical history. Under the name Marion Girard, she is author of A Strange and Formidable Weapon. Her most recent book is Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II.
Dr. Sarah Parry Myers is an Associate Professor of History at Messiah University in central Pennsylvania, where she teaches courses on 20th century United States history, gender, public history, and military history. She is the recent recipient of a Dialogues on the Experience of War grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, focused on generating dialogue with female veterans. Sarah’s work has appeared in edited collections released by Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge, and her book Earning Their Wings: The WASPs of World War II and Their Fight for Veteran Recognition, recently released from the University of North Carolina Press, explores the history of the Women Airforce Service Pilots—and this book is the subject of our conversation today!
Steve Biernacki is the Executive Director of the South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society, following roles as Executive Director of City Connections in Little Rock, AR and various positions with the Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas. Steve is here to talk about the world of nonprofits and community leadership - so don't miss this conversation!
Derek Reveron is Chair and Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He specializes in strategy development, non-state security challenges, intelligence, and U.S. defense policy. He has authored or edited fourteen books. Dr. Reveron is a faculty affiliate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University where he co-teaches a course on contemporary national security challenges at the Kennedy School of Government. The views expressed by Dr. Reveron are his alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Naval War College, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of Defense.
John E. Savage is the An Wang Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Brown University. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He served as a Jefferson Science Fellow in the U.S. State Department, a Fellow at the EastWest Institute, and a member of the Rhode Island Cybersecurity Commission. Dr. Savage has published over one hundred research articles, two books on theoretical computer science, co-authored a book on computer literacy, and co-edited a book on Very Large Scale Integration and parallel systems. He has given more than one hundred and eighty-five invited presentations worldwide.
Together Dr. Reveron and Dr. Savage are the co-authors of Security in the Cyber Age: An Introduction to Policy and Technology which was recently released from Cambridge University Press, and is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Julia Irwin is the T. Harry Williams Professor of History at Louisiana State University, and the Co-Editor of the Journal of Disaster Studies. Her research focuses on the place of humanitarian aid in twentieth-century U.S. foreign relations, and we will be talking about her second book, Catastrophic Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance in the American Century (2023) on the show today!
Dr. Kathy Peiss is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History (emerita) at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe, published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Other books include Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (1986), Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture (1998), and Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style (2011). She has also served as a consultant to museums, archives, and public history projects, and appeared in the documentary films New York, Miss America, and The Powder and the Glory.
Michael Kilpatrick is a farmer, presenter, inventor, and leader whose mission is to help farmers apply business principles and practical solutions to grow their businesses and simplify their lives. He has managed large organic farms and businesses, consulted for industry experts, and spoken at dozens of conferences. In 2004 Michael launched a highly diversified, year-round vegetable farm with his brother, which soon grew (no pun intended) until it encompassed several hundred acres and had more than twenty employees, selling produce to farmer’s markets, CSA, co-ops, and wholesale buyers. These days Michael continues to be actively involved in the market farming industry, managing the Farm on Central in Carlisle, Ohio, and he is a leader working to equip others. He is the creator and host of the Thriving Farmer Podcast, he is a farming consultant, and he serves on the City Council in Carlisle, working to improve his local community and pave the way for a successful and thriving small business ecosystem.
Dr. Jared Tracy is the deputy command historian for the US Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he researches and publishes on the history of propaganda, psychological operations, and other facets of special operations. Dr. Tracy served six years in the Army himself, received his MA in History from Virginia Commonwealth University and his PhD in History from Kansas State University. His writing has appeared in Military Review, NCO Journal, Southern Historian, and Veritas: Journal of Army Special Operations History. He is also the author of Victory through Influence: Origins of Psychological Operations in the U.S. Army, recently released from Texas A&M University Press, which received an honorable mention for the 2023 Master Corporal Jan Stanislaw Jakobczak Memorial Book Award sponsored by the U.S. Military History Group.
Dr. Max Smeets is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich and Director of the European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative. He is the author of No Shortcuts: Why States Struggle to Develop a Military Cyber-Force from Oxford University Press and co-editor of two additional cyber-related titles, from Georgetown University Press and Edinburgh University Press, respectively. Max is an affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and an associate fellow at Royal United Services Institute. He also lectures on cyber warfare and defense as part of the Senior Officer course at the NATO Defense College in Rome.
Before his academic career, Max worked in finance in London and Amsterdam. Max received a BA in Economics, Politics and Statistics summa cum laude from University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University and an M.Phil (Brasenose College) and DPhil (St. John’s College) in International Relations from the University of Oxford.
Shelby Fleming holds a BFA in Studio Art from the Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville and an MFA from the University of Arkansas School of Art with an emphasis in Digital Fabrication. She serves as the Fabrication and Robotics Lab Coordinator at the Fayetteville Public Library in Northwest Arkansas. In her first year she has assisted with over 1800 patron projects, offered 240 STEAM based programs to the public, and assisted in coordinating the Fayetteville Public Library’s first ever Maker Faire.
Happy New Year, and welcome to SEASON 5!
It’s no secret that we are very interested in the publishing process here on The Modern Scholar Podcast, and I am very excited for today’s episode because we have an opportunity to explore a very interesting and very important part of that process—cover design. I have Scott Levine and William Oates with me today—Scott is the art director and William is a graphic designer, both at Cornell University Press. They are going to take us behind the scenes today, to help us all learn a little bit more about how the wonderful cover on your favorite book is designed and produced.
Dr. Luke Truxal is an American military historian who focuses on the application of American air power during the Second World War. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in 2011 and 2018. His teaching fields include Europe in the twentieth century, United States history, United States military history, and United States political history in the twentieth century.
Truxal’s main research interest is the air war in Europe from 1942 to 1945. He is the author of Uniting against the Reich: The American Air War in Europe (Kentucky 2023). He is also an assistant editor for the scholarly web journal Balloons to Drones. He previously published “Bombing the Romanian Rail Network,” in the Spring 2018 issue of Air Power History. He is currently researching the air war over Romania from 1942 to 1944 with a particular emphasis on American and Soviet coordination and joint operations.
Dr. Raymond James Raymond is a retired British diplomat. He is an adjunct professor in the department of social sciences, United States Military Academy, adjunct fellow of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, Newport, Rhode Island, and professor emeritus of government and history at the State University of New York campus at Stone Ridge. He is the author of Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan, recently released from the U.S. Naval Institute Press, and this book is the subject of our conversation today!
Dr. Katherine Kornei is a freelance science writer based in Portland, Oregon. She covers Earth and space science for outlets such as Science News, Scientific American, and The New York Times. Katherine has reported stories from Asia, Europe, and the United States. She holds a BS in astrophysics from Yale University and an MS and PhD in astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The article that we reference during the conversation can be found here, at Civil Eats.
Dr. Suzanne Sutherland is an Associate Professor of History and General Education Director at Middle Tennessee State University. Dr. Sutherland’s teaching and research focus on the relationships between war and other developments in the early modern period including the scientific revolution, the republic of letters, and the growth of states and empires. Dr. Sutherland has been involved in multiple collaborative and interdisciplinary projects including Mapping the Republic of Letters as well as the Stanford-based “Early Modern Mobility: Knowledge, Communication, and Transportation, 1500-1800.” Finally, she serves as a Subject Editor for the digital Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance World and Digital Humanities Track Director for The Sixteenth Century Society and Conference. She is the author of The Rise of the Military Entrepreneur: War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Hapsburg Europe, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Terilyn Johnson Huntington is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where she also works with the Center for Teaching Excellence, is involved with student mentorship programs, and serves on the Faculty Senate. Dr. Huntington received her MA and PhD in political science from the University of Kansas, but prior to her time at Kansas she also completed a masters in international studies at the University of Denver and a masters in Theological Studies from Bethel Theological Seminary. Her research has focused on the impact of drone warfare and targeted killing as well as military intervention, and now—perhaps most fascinating of all—the interconnections between major league baseball and national security!
Dr. Katherine Carroll is an Associate Professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. She earned her MA (1996) and PhD (2001) from the University of Virginia’s Department of Politics with a specialization in the comparative politics of the Middle East. She came to Vanderbilt University in 2001 as the Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Science. After five years in administration, she moved to teaching full time in the Department of Political Science where she offers courses on the Middle East, the war in Iraq, comparative politics, and the U.S. military. From 2009 until 2019 she also directed Vanderbilt’s undergraduate major in Public Policy Studies and has continued to serve as the Associate Director since 2019.
In 2008 and 2009 she took a leave of absence from Vanderbilt to work as a social scientist on a Human Terrain Team in Baghdad, Iraq. These teams were developed to provide expert social and political advice to brigade commanders and soldiers on the ground in war zones.
Her publications include “Not Your Parents’ Political Party: Young Sunnis and the New Iraqi Democracy” (Middle East Policy, Fall 2011), “Tribal Law and Reconciliation in the New Iraq” (Middle East Journal, Winter 2011), and Business as Usual? Economic Reform in Jordan (Lexington Press, 2003).
William B. Hickman is a retired Major General in the U.S. Army, with 36 years of experience supporting our European Allies, deployments in support of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, and strategic and operational assignments focused on U.S. national security.
His last assignment was as the Strategic Plans and Policy Director for the NATO Allied Transformation Command, Norfolk, VA. During this assignment, the Plans and Policy Directorate drafted Political and Military Alliance-wide strategic concepts, published the Strategic Foresight Analysis 2017 Report, studied strategic level decision-making through participation in NATO Crisis Management Exercises and provided recommendations to improve Alliance decision-making, and assisted the Nations in drafting the Alliance’s first military strategy since the Cold War.
Hickman earned his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Vanderbilt University in 1983 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant through the ROTC program. He later earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Vanderbilt University and a Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.
Together Dr. Carroll and General Hickman are co-editors of the book Understanding the U.S. Military, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Major Ben Griffin is the Chief of the Military History Division in the History Department at the United States Military Academy. He is the author of the recently published Reagan’s War Stories which examines how the Reagan Administration used fiction to think about the military balance of power in Europe and throughout the world. Ben holds a PhD and MA in History from the University of Texas at Austin, a MA in International Security Studies from the University of Arizona, and a BS in History from the United States Military Academy. He commissioned as a Military Intelligence Officer after his graduation from West Point in 2006 and has been stationed at Ft Drum, NY, Ft Hood, TX, and Ft Riley KS, as well deploying twice to Iraq in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn. As always when speaking with guests employed by the Federal Government is important to point out that Major Griffin’s comments represent his opinions alone and do not represent the views of the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Dr. David Gellman is Professor of History at DePauw University, where he has taught since 1999. His book Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York was published in Spring 2022 by Three Hills, and imprint of Cornell University Press. Among his other publications are Emancipating New York: The Politics of Slavery and Freedom, 1777-1827 and Jim Crow New York: A Documentary History of Race and Citizenship, 1777-1877. Both were selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Titles. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Early Republic and has held research fellowships at the Huntington Library, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. In addition, he has published two essays on rock legend Bruce Springsteen and is co-host of a long-running music radio show on WGRE, 91.5 FM, in Greencastle, Indiana.
Today I visited the Twinsburg Public Library in Twinsburg, Ohio to deliver a book talk about my book Rise of the Mavericks—the last book event of the year! It was a very special opportunity, because this is the library where I started my library career, first as a volunteer and then as a page, shelving books! Cari is the assistant director here, and so we took a few minutes to visit about the library and about the role of libraries in their communities. Enjoy!
Betsy Rohaly Smoot is an intelligence historian interested in early twentieth-century cryptology and communications who has published articles in both Cryptologia and Intelligence and National Security. She spent 34 years at the National Security Agency as an analyst, manager, and, for her final ten years, as a historian in the Center for Cryptologic History. She is the author of the newly released book Parker Hitt: The Father of American Military Cryptology (University Press of Kentucky) and the forthcoming From the Ground Up: American Cryptology During World War I (the Center for Cryptologic History). Betsy holds a BA from Mary Washington College and an MS in Strategic Intelligence from what is now the National Intelligence University.
Betsy and I have crossed paths over the years during the Society for Military History annual conferences and I’m very excited to have her on the show today and hear about her new book exploring the life of Parker Hitt!
Dr. Rebecca Sharpless is a Professor of History at Texas Christian University, where she teaches American history, women’s history, history of food in America, the history of Texas, and Southern history. She is a past-president of the Oral History Association, a past-president of the Southern Association for Women Historians, and she has also served on the Executive Council of the Texas State Historical Association. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices: Women on Texas Cotton Farms, 1900-1940, Cooking in Other Women’s Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960, and her most recent book Grain and Fire: A History of Baking in the American South, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Jacqueline Hazelton is Executive Editor of the journal International Security at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Hazelton came to the Belfer Center from the Naval War College where she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Strategy and Policy. At the Naval War College, Hazelton taught strategy and policy to U.S. and international military officers and their civilian equivalents. Her courses for officers focused on understanding the political effects of military force and how to translate military strategy into desired policy outcomes.
Hazelton’s research ranges from grand strategy, great power military intervention, and U.S. foreign and military policy to counterinsurgency, terrorism, and the uses of military power. She recently published Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare and is working on a manuscript about great powers and military interventions.
Dr. Karin Wulf is a Professor of History at Brown University and the Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library. Before coming to the John Carter Brown Library and Brown University in 2021, she was the Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture a and Professor of History at William and Mary. A historian of gender, family and politics in eighteenth-century British America, Dr. Wulf earned her PhD at Johns Hopkins University. She is an elected fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Royal Historical Society, among other learned societies. Dr. Wulf was appointed by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam to the commonwealth’s American Revolution 250 Commission, and her service to scholarly organizations includes terms on the boards of ORCID and the National History Center. With Keisha Blain and Emily Prifogle she is a co-founder of Women Also Know History. At William and Mary she was a co-founder of the Neurodiversity Initiative and continues to be deeply engaged with issues around disability and diversity. She writes regularly on history and the humanities, #VastEarlyAmerica, the politics and processes of libraries, publishing, and scholarship for national media and for the Scholarly Kitchen, the blog of the Society for Scholarly Publishing.
Dr. Kari Frederickson is a professor of history and past chair of the department of history at the University of Alabama. She is author of The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932-1968 and coeditor of Making Waves: Female Activists in Twentieth-Century Florida. She is also the author of Cold War Dixie: Militarization and Modernization in the American South, which is the subject of our conversation today. We’ll also explore her new book, Deep South Dynasty: The Bankheads of Alabama, which was released in November 2021. Dr. Frederickson received her PhD from Rutgers University and her research interests include African-American history, Southern history, and American political history since 1865.
Dr. Edward B. Westermann received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is a Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. He has published extensively in the areas of the Holocaust, genocide, and German military history. He is the author of four books and two co-edited volumes including Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (2005) and Hitler’s Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars: Comparing Genocide and Conquest (2016). He was a Fulbright Fellow in Berlin, a three-time German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Fellow, and a J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His most recent work, Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany, appeared with Cornell University Press in association with the Holocaust Museum in March 2021, and is the subject of our conversation today.
Katie Stallard is a senior editor at the New Statesman magazine where she writes about China and global affairs. She’s also a non-resident global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and she has written for various publications including The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, and The Diplomat, and has appeared as an analyst for multiple media outlets. Previously based in Russia and China as a foreign correspondent for Sky News, she has reported from more than twenty countries to date, covering conflicts, natural disasters, and some of the world’s most repressive regimes. Katie is also the author of Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia, and North Korea, published by Oxford University Press in May 2022, and this book is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Brian Laslie is the Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy. He previously served as the Deputy Command Historian at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and as the Historian, 1st Fighter Wing, Langley Air Force Base, home to the 94th and 27th Fighter Squadrons.
A 2001 graduate of The Citadel: The Military College of South Carolina and a historian of air and space power studies, Dr. Laslie received his Master’s degree from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his Doctorate in history from Kansas State University in 2013. His first book The Air Force Way of War: U.S. Tactics and Training after Vietnam (Kentucky, 2015) was published in the Spring of 2015 and landed on the 2016 Chief-of-Staff of the Air Force’s Reading List and the 2017 Royal Air Force’s Chief of the Air Staff Reading List.
Dr. Laslie is currently finishing work on his fourth book manuscript as well as serving as the Air Power and Aviation Series Editor for the University Press of Kentucky.
Eric Jay Dolin is the author of fifteen books, including Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America, which was chosen as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and also won the 2007 John Lyman Award for U.S. Maritime History. His most recent book before Rebels at Sea is A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes, which was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was chosen as one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Booklist, Library Journal, and the editors at Amazon. It was also selected as a “Must Read” book by the Massachusetts Center for the Book for 2020. A graduate of Brown, Yale, and MIT, where he received his PhD in environmental policy, Dolin lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts, with his family.
Dr. Mark Stout is former Senior Lecturer in the Governmental Studies department at Johns Hopkins University. From 2013 to 2021 he was the director of the MA in Global Security Studies and he directed the post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Intelligence from 2014 to 2019. He previously worked for thirteen years as an intelligence analyst, first with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and later with the CIA. He has also worked on the Army Staff in the Pentagon and at the Institute for Defense Analyses. In addition, from 2010 to 2013 he was the Historian and Curator at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC.
Dr. Stout is a series co-editor of Georgetown University Press’ Studies in Intelligence History book series. He is a contributing editor at War on the Rocks and he was the founding President of the North American Society for Intelligence History from 2016-2019. He is the co-author or co-editor of several books and has published articles in The Journal of Strategic Studies, Intelligence and National Security, Studies in Intelligence, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He has a book on American intelligence in World War I under contract to the University Press of Kansas.
Dr. Stout has degrees from Stanford and Harvard Universities and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. His research interests include American intelligence history and military thought.
Rachel Bair is the Director for Sustainable Food Systems at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, where she has led the development of programming that focuses on sustainability and community economic development in the food system, including the launch and growth of the ValleyHUB food hub at the Food Innovation Center. Prior to her role at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Rachel worked in the nonprofit sector as the director of the statewide Double Up Food Bucks program, which matches SNAP benefits spent on healthy Michigan-grown foods. Rachel earned her bachelor’s in Biology from Northwestern University, followed by a master’s of Public Health and Master of Science in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan. Rachel works with food because it is a great tool for building connections—within communities, and between people and the Earth that sustains us—and I’m looking forward to learning more throughout the conversation today!
Dr. Cameron Zinsou is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Dr. Zinsou received his Ph.D. in History at Mississippi State University, and his master’s and bachelor’s in History at the University of North Texas. He is an active member of the Society for Military History and served as the Graduate Student Representative for the SMH from 2016-2018. He also received the Allan R. Millett Dissertation Research Fellowship Award for his dissertation, “Occupied: The Civilian Experience in Montélimar, 1939-1945” in 2017. Dr. Zinsou’s work focuses on the intersection of civil-military relations, occupation, and military strategy and operations of the Second World War, and we’ll be talking about his research today.
Apologies for a slight difference in audio quality on today's episode.
Ali Wyne is a senior analyst with Eurasia Group’s Global Macro-Geopolitics practice, focusing on US-China relations and great-power competition. He has served as a junior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research assistant at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. Ali has also been a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a nonresident fellow at the Modern War Institute. He received dual bachelor’s degrees in management science and political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned his master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. Ali is the author of America’s Great-Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition, and we’ll be talking about this book today on the show.
Ali is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a David Rockefeller fellow with the Trilateral Commission, and a security fellow with the Truman National Security Project. He also serves as a member of Foreign Policy for America’s Board of Directors and as a member of the American Pakistan Foundation’s Leadership Council. Also – and I was particularly inspired to see this in his bio on the Eurasia Group website – Ali is an avid coffee drinker, and continues to expand his collection of coffee mugs, cups, and tumblers, so with that, thank you very much for being here and sharing your time today, I appreciate it!
Dr. Betty Lai is an Associate Professor in Counseling Psychology at Boston College. Dr. Lai’s research focuses on the impacts of the climate crisis and disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires on children. Dr. Lai is the author of The Grant Writing Guide: A Road Map for Scholars from Princeton University Press, and this book is the subject of our conversation today. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Dr. Lai’s work has been recognized with numerous awards. In 2022, she received the Distinguished Research Award in Counseling from Division E of the American Educational Research Association and the Dorothy Booz Black Award for Outstanding Contributions in Health Psychology from Division 17 of the American Psychological Association.
For the resources Dr. Lai mentioned in the episode, see below:
- How to talk to a program officer: https://scholarfoundations.com/blog/post/why-you-need-to-talk-to-a-program-officer
- Free grant samples: https://scholarfoundations.com/samples
- Information about the book: thegrantwritingguide.com
Adrian Miller is a food writer, James Beard Award winner, attorney, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado. Adrian received an A.B in International Relations from Stanford University in 1991, and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995. From 1999 to 2001, Miller served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Miller went on to serve as a senior policy analyst for Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Jr. From 2004 to 2010, he served on the board for the Southern Foodways Alliance. He is currently the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches and, as such, is the first African American, and the first layperson, to hold that position. In 2018, Adrian was awarded the Ruth Fertel “Keeper of the Flame Award” by the Southern Foodways Alliance, in recognition of his work on African American foodways.
Miller’s first book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. His second book, The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas was published on President’s Day 2017. It was a finalist for a 2018 NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Literary Work – Non-Fiction,” and the 2018 Colorado Book Award for History. Adrian’s third book is Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, and is the subject of our conversation today.
Katherine Sharp Landdeck is a Professor of History at Texas Woman’s University, the home of the WASP archives. A Guggenheim Fellow at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, where she was a Normandy Scholar and earned her Ph.D. in American History, Landdeck has received numerous awards for her work on the WASP and has appeared as an expert on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS, and the History channel. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Time, as well as in numerous academic and aviation publications. She is the author ofThe Women with Silver Wings: The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, which is the subject of our conversation today. To top it all off, Dr. Landdeck is a licensed pilot who flies whenever she can!
Dr. Ron Granieri is Professor of History in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College, where he is the editor and principal host of A Better Peace, the official podcast of The War Room. A graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago, he also serves as Director of the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he hosts a monthly talk show, “People, Politics and Prose with Ron Granieri.” His research focuses on transatlantic relations, German politics, and the Cold War. He is the author of The Ambivalent Alliance: Konrad Adenauer, the CDU/CSU, and the West, 1949-1966 (Berghahn, 2003), as well as articles and op-eds in journals including Orbis, Central European History, the International History Review, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post.
To contact Ron, start here.
I should point out that today’s conversation is covered by our standard disclaimer for federally-employed guests—the comments from Ron today are his views alone and do not represent the Army War College, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
Dr. Jeremy Yellen is a historian of modern Japan based in Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and since 2014 has been teaching at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Jeremy’s research focuses on modern Japan’s international, diplomatic, and political history. His work largely grapples with questions of warfare, empire, diplomacy, and international order, and pair Japanese high policy during World War II with developments in the periphery of Japan’s empire. Much of his work makes use of transnational and comparative perspectives to place Japanese history in its proper global context. His first book, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War, was published by Cornell University Press in April 2019 and is being re-released in paperback, and is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Robert “Bob” Wettemann is an Associate Professor of History at the United States Air Force Academy. He holds a B.A. with Honors in History from Oklahoma State University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History from Texas A&M University. He is the author of Privilege vs. Equality: Civil Military Relations in the Jacksonian Era, 1815-1845 (Praeger Security International, 2009) and numerous articles and book chapters on U.S. military and public history. He has previously taught in the History Department at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, contributed in the Command Historian’s Office of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and served as Director of the U.S. Air Force Academy Center for Oral History. His current project, Rhino Tanks and Sticky Bombs: American Ingenuity in World War Two, explores the junction of innovation and technology among GIs in the Second World War.
Benjamin Allison is a PhD student in History and a Graduate Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin specializing in 20th century US foreign relations, especially vis-á-vis the Middle East and Russia. He is the lead author of the forthcoming book Die in Your Rage: The Logic of Violence in Jihadist Insurgency with Samuel S. Stanton.
A graduate of Kent State University, his master’s thesis examined American relations with a group of rejectionist Arabs, known as the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front, during and after the Camp David peace process. He argues that the peace process and the coming of the Second Cold War were intimately connected, and hopes to continue this research for his dissertation, using Russian- and Arabic-language sources to paint a fuller picture of the transnational and international dimensions of this critical juncture in modern history.
*Originally recorded on March 17, 2022.
Dr. Kyriakos Nalmpantis is Chair of the Department of History and assistant professor of European history at Baldwin Wallace University. He has a total of nineteen years teaching experience, and in addition to teaching at Baldwin Wallace, has taught at Cleveland State University, Kent State University, and at the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. His primary research focus is on wartime Greece and the Balkans, but he is also a specialist in Reformation-era Europe, contemporary European history and modern Latin American history. At Baldwin Wallace, he also teaches a course on classical antiquity that is mostly focused on ancient Greece and Rome. In 2011, his dissertation, Time on the Mountain: The Office of Strategic Services in Axis-Occupied Greece, won the Modern Greek Studies Association’s biennial Iatrides Dissertation Prize for best dissertation. He has also published short biographical articles on three important Greek Orthodox prelates — Metropolitan Germanos Karavaggelis, Archbishop Damaskinos and Archbishop Makarios — in the Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Politics (Greenwood Publishing, 2006). Dr. Nalmpantis also serves on both the National Council and the Scholarship Committee for Phi Alpha Theta, which is the National Honor Society for History.
Dr. Nalmpantis has his master’s degree and his PhD in history from Kent State University, which is where we crossed paths – I took his History of the Balkans class as an upper division undergrad when I was there at Kent State and it was one of my favorite classes in undergrad – it definitely deepened my interest in the Balkans, and his unique and captivating, really effortless classroom teaching style still stands out in my mind to this day as one that I might hopefully be able to emulate at some point!
Felton Thomas is the Executive Director of Cleveland Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio. Since beginning his tenure at CPL, Director Thomas has furthered the mission of CPL to be “The People’s University,” including launching initiatives aimed at addressing community needs in the areas of access to technology, education, and economic development.
Prior to taking the role in Cleveland, Mr. Thomas served as Director of Regional Branch Services for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District in Las Vegas, Nevada and as President of the Nevada Library Association.
Felton’s awards and accomplishments include being named a “Mover and Shaker” by the Library Journal, and acting as a fellow in the Urban Library Council’s Executive Leadership Institute. Nationally, Felton has served on the board of Directors of the Public Library Association (PLA), and as a member of the Aspen Institute Task Force on Learning and the Internet, a forum to determine the best way to increase digital learning and innovation without compromising safety. Felton is an active member of the Greater Cleveland community, having served as Board President of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, and as trustee on the boards of Sisters of Charity Foundation, University Circle Inc., United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland and United Way of Greater Cleveland.
Stephanie Hinnershitz is Senior Historian with the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at the National World War II Museum and earned her PhD from the University of Maryland in 2013, and then served as an assistant professor at Valdosta State University and again at Cleveland State University before joining the team at the Museum. Her specialty is the American home front and civil-military relations during World War II, and her award-winning work has been supported with grants and fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, the Office of Diversity at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Library of Congress, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Her most recent book, Japanese American Incarceration: The Camps and Coerced Labor during World War II, was published in 2021 with the University of Pennsylvania Press and was awarded the 2021 Philip Taft Labor History Award, and we’ll be talking about this book and some of Stephanie’s additional research today!
Dr. Rob Thompson is a historian with the Films Team at the Army University Press. He received his PhD in History from the University of Southern Mississippi, and he specializes in the study of the Vietnam War, with a focus on the confluence of conventional warfare and pacification at the province level. His research places American strategy in the context of a single province—Phú Yên, and this is the subject of his book which we will be discussing today – Clear, Hold, and Destroy: Pacification in Phú Yên and the American War in Vietnam, which was published in 2021 by the University of Oklahoma Press. Dr. Thompson is also interested in the history of American diplomacy and the history of Modern Europe, and his writing has appeared in The Strategy Bridge, The New York Times, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History.
Also, our standard disclaimer: Dr. Thompson's comments represent his views only and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of The Modern Scholar Podcast, Army University Press, the U.S. Army, or the Department of Defense.
My guest today is Dr. Tanya Roth. She earned her history PhD from Washington University in St. Louis and teaches high school and middle school history at MICDS in St. Louis, Missouri. She is the author of Her Cold War: Women in the U.S. Military, 1945-1980 which is the subject of our conversation today. Her research has been recognized by the American Association of University Women, and in 2019 an early version of Her Cold War received the Society for Military History’s Coffman First Manuscript Prize. Tanya’s writing has been published in The Washington Post, History News Network, and Public Seminar. She lives in the St. Louis area with her family. You can find Tanya on Twitter as @DrTanyaRoth and online at tanyaroth.com.
Erica Lunde is the Garden Programmer for the Faulkner County Library in Conway, Arkansas. In 2018 she graduated from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln with a Fisheries and Wildlife degree. In 2020 she moved to Arkansas and was hired as part-time circulation staff for the Faulkner County Library. Since then, she has become the full time Garden Programmer. In this position, she brainstorms, creates, and hosts gardening events and programs as well as maintains the Community Garden in the library’s backyard!
Dr. Aaron Bateman is an Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University and an affiliate of the Space Policy Institute. He received his Master’s in International Relations from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and his PhD in the History of Science and Technology at Johns Hopkins University. His research takes place at the intersection of science, technology, and national security during the Cold War. His research interests include technological cooperation and competition, military spaceflight, secrecy and knowledge regulation, arms control, technology and warfare, and the role of intelligence in statecraft. His work draws from archival collections in the United States, Western Europe, and the former Soviet Union. His first book project places Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative in the context of a more militarized American approach to space that had emerged in the 1970s, and shows how divergent views of space militarization influenced U.S. foreign relations and public diplomacy through the end of the Cold War. In other projects he explores the development of overseas American surveillance infrastructure and its impact on U.S. relations with host nations.
His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Diplomacy & Statecraft, Intelligence and National Security, the Oxford Handbook of Space Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Science & Diplomacy, Diplomacy and Statecraft, and the Journal of Slavic Military Studies. Since he believes that historians have a unique role to play in informing current policy debates, he also writes about contemporary defense and space topics in policy-focused publications including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Physics Today, and War on the Rocks.
While completing his doctoral studies, Dr. Bateman held a Guggenheim predoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Prior to graduate school, he served as a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer with assignments at the National Security Agency and the Pentagon. As a staff member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, he supported intelligence and national security space efforts. He has also participated in international dialogues aimed at promoting stability in space.
Rob Williams recently completed his PhD in History at The Ohio State University, researching the emergence, and development of a distinct “airborne” subculture during World War II and its influence on the U.S. Army during the Cold War. In a former life, he served as an infantryman and paratrooper with three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he is married with two children, and resides in Columbus, Ohio. His work has been featured in Stars and Stripes, VFW Magazine, ARMY Magazine, and the Columbus Dispatch among others.
This week, Dr. Paul "PJ" Springer is here to help me introduce my book to all of you, so the tables have turned and I'm a guest on my own show!
Weird, I know. Cue the third-person bio.
As a military historian, Philip Shackelford brings a unique focus on organizational culture and development to the history of communications intelligence, national security, and the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War. His book, Rise of the Mavericks: The U.S. Air Force Security Service and the Cold War, explores the rise of the U.S. Air Force Security Service, its Cold War history, and the relationships the command developed with other military and government agencies—the first work of academic scholarship to focus exclusively on this command. Philip has shared this research during multiple annual conferences of the Society for Military History and in other venues, such as the North American Society for Intelligence History annual conference and the faculty forum of the Air Command and Staff College. Philip is also currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of the newsletter for the North American Society for Intelligence History.
Philip currently serves as the Library Director at South Arkansas Community College. He is a past president of the Arkansas Library Association, and serves the Arkansas library community in a variety of other capacities, including a recent term as Secretary of ARKLink (a statewide consortium of academic libraries) and as an Associate Editor for the Arkansas Libraries journal.
In 2019 Philip was recognized as an Emerging Leader by the American Library Association, and in 2020 completed a Certificate in OER Librarianship through the Open Education Network. Philip’s masters in History and masters in Library and Information Science are both from Kent State University.
Enjoy!
Dr. Elena Wicker recently completed her Ph.D. in International Relations at Georgetown University. Her dissertation, The Words That Matter: Terminology and Performance in the U.S. Army, explores the history of U.S. military lexicography and the strategic creation and use of jargon in strategy, doctrine, and concepts. Her interdisciplinary and multi-method research combines archival research, interviews, and quantitative methods including machine learning and natural language processing.
Dr. Wicker was a 2021-2022 predoctoral fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin and was selected as a 2022 Presidential Management Fellowship finalist. She has been an Adjunct Researcher with the RAND Corporation since 2019, and has contributed to projects relating to intelligence, security cooperation, homeland security, and defense policy. Prior to her graduate studies, she served as an Intelligence Security Cooperation Officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. She has completed internships in arms control treaty verification at the Department of State and worked for refugee aid projects in Jordan and the West Bank while studying advanced Arabic as a Boren Scholar. She holds an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University and a B.A. (magna cum laude) in Near Eastern Studies from Cornell University.
*Originally recorded August 1, 2022.
We have a FANTASTIC bonus episode for you all today!
Last Saturday several history podcasters came together to present a round table discussion about podcasting during the 2023 Society for Military History annual conference, held in San Diego. We recorded that session as a live episode, and are very excited to provide it for you here today! The session was titled "Making Airwaves: The Profession of History and the World of Podcasting," and brought together the hosts and creators of Bow and Blade, Civics and Coffee, Military Historians Are People, Too!, of course The Modern Scholar Podcast, and A Better Peace, the official podcast of The War Room. Please enjoy, and I hope everyone is inspired by the discussion.
*This episode was recorded live during a conference session, so please excuse any irregularities in audio quality.
Dr. Heather Venable is an Associate Professor of Military and Security Studies in the Department of Airpower at the U.S. Air Force Air Command and Staff College. As a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, she taught naval and Marine Corps history. She graduated with a BA in History from Texas A&M University and a MA in American History from the University of Hawai’i. She received her PhD in military history from Duke University. She is the author of How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique, 1874-1918(Naval Institute Press, 2019). She is also a non-resident fellow at Marine Corps University’s Krulak Center, and she has contributed many articles about airpower and the current Air Force to online publications including War on the Rocks and the Modern War Institute, and she serves as a Managing Editor for the online journal Strategy Bridge. Dr. Venable also serves as Chair of the Program Committee for the Society for Military History. Her current research centers on intersections between theory and pre-war thinking and the application of airpower in combat.
*Originally recorded July 20, 2022.
Dr. Marjorie Galelliis the Associate Director of the Center for Military, War, and Society Studies at the University of Kansas, where she recently received her PhD. She is also a Henry Chauncey ’57 Postdoctoral fellow in the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale. Her research focuses on the relationship between the US military, the government, the media, and the American people, throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. Her manuscript, Two Sides of the Same COIN: A History of the United States and Counterinsurgency During Operation Iraqi Freedom examines the United States’ progressive adoption of counterinsurgency (COIN) between 2003 and 2011.
*Originally recorded June 7, 2022.
Dr. Bethany Wasik is an Acquisitions Editor with Cornell University Press. She currently acquires projects in the fields of Classics, Archaeology, Modern Western European History, and Military History. Prior to joining the acquisitions team at Cornell Bethany completed a PhD and two postdoctoral fellowships in molecular genetics and evolutionary biology. Her transition from academia to publishing was fueled not only by a passion for editing and reviewing scholarly content, but also a desire to promote that content to a larger audience, which I hope we can talk about today. In addition to her science background, Bethany also minored in archaeology and enjoyed a robust liberal arts undergraduate experience, and so looks forward to building a publication list at Cornell in all the areas she acquires. Outside of the publishing world Bethany enjoys hiking, genealogy, bourbon, and creating complex and ridiculous Twitter hashtags!
Relinda Ruth is the Director of Educational Resources and OER Specialist at the University of Arkansas-Cossatot Community College. She is responsible for the Educational Resource Center (ERC) at three campuses, which includes Kimball Library, all tutoring services, the college’s award-winning textbook rental & OER program, along with textbook procurement. She was instrumental in building the state’s first two-year-college internal textbook rental program and growing the college’s OER initiative in 2015. In 2020, UA Cossatot was awarded a Title III SIP 2.2 million-dollar grant, and Relinda serves as the Title III Director. As the college’s OER Specialist, she is responsible for the development and implementation of policies relating to open licensing, OER initiatives and practices, and provides guidance on Creative Commons licensing and OER content. She compiles open resources and provides OER usage training for faculty. Relinda leads the college’s OER Team, raises awareness of open education activities and practices, and as a leading contact for OER in Arkansas, she encourages broad participation across the state through conferences, also chairing the ARKLink OER Task Force. From 2019-21, Relinda served a two-year term on the six-member steering committee for the Open Education Network, and she is certified for specialization in open licensing and the Commons through Creative Commons.
Stephanie Pierce is Director of User Services and Director of the Physics Library at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR. In addition to managing one of three branch libraries, she serves on the Open Educational Resources Team and Open Access Interest Group to promote and advocate participation in the various open initiatives on campus. Her research interests include utilizing text-mining to assess open textbooks for inclusivity and diversity; library space design; digital scholarship; Women in STEM; open scholarship; and OER advocacy/professional development.
Dr. Jason Herbert is an ethnographer for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, where he is the primary author of an ethnographic study of the Everglades, and he is the creator of the Historians at the Movies, the international phenomenon bringing together a community of historians and film lovers around the world to watch different movies each week and analyze the historical implications and cultural relevance. Dr. Herbert received his PhD from the University of Minnesota, where his research focused on the intersection of environmental and Indigenous history from the precolonial era to the present. His dissertation, Beast of Many Names: Cattle, Conflict, and the Transformation of Indigenous Florida, 1519-1858,examined the social, political, economic, and environmental consequences stemming from the introduction of livestock onto the Florida peninsula over three centuries. Finally, Dr. Herbert is also the co-founder of the Allen Morris Forum on the Native South, a monthly online meeting of scholars who specialize in the history and cultures of Indigenous Southerners.
Since recording our conversation April stepped into a new role as Regional Manager for the Carroll and Madison Library System. Congrats!
April Griffith is the Library Director at the Carnegie Public Library in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She received her MSLS from Clarion University in 2012, and has worked in academic, special and public libraries over the past decade. Her passion for the intersection of library services, community, and sustainability prompted her to serve as a project advisor for ALA’s Resilient Communities: Libraries Respond to Climate Change, write a chapter forLibraries and Sustainability: Programs and Practices for Community Impact, edited by Rene Tanner, et al., and contribute blog entries for ALA’s Programming Librarian blog. April presented on the topic of sustainable library practices at the 2020 Association of Rural and Small Libraries annual conference, the 2020 ArLA annual conference, as well as for web program feature series hosted by various state libraries. Her service to the profession includes volunteering as a reader for the Arkansas Teen Book Awards and participation on ArLA’s Nominating and Awards committees.
Neil Oatsvall hails from and resides on the East Coast but he spent over a decade landlocked in the middle of the country. He did his undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina in Asian Studies (Japanese language) and history, and received his doctorate in history from the University of Kansas. Currently, Neil teaches high school history at the Triangle Math and Science Academy in Cary, NC. He has published in various outlets, including Agricultural History, Environment and History, and Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies. His book manuscript, Atomic Environments: Nuclear Technologies, the Natural World, and Policymaking, 1945-1960,is forthcoming with the University of Alabama Press.
Michael Cannell is a journalist and author who has also served as an editor for The New York Times. His writing includes numerous stories on sports and design, as well as four books, which include The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit and A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc. He is also the author of Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Grant T. Harward is a native of southern California. He completed his BA in history at Brigham Young University in 2009, his MSc in the Second World War in Europe at the University of Edinburgh in 2010, and his PhD in history at Texas A&M University in 2018. He is a former Auschwitz Jewish Center fellow, a former Fulbright scholar to Romania, and a former Mandel Center fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was a historian for the U.S. Army Medical Department Center of History and Heritage at Fort Sam Houston (“Home of the Combat Medic”) in San Antonio from 2018 to 2021. He now works as a historian for the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Dr. Harward has written numerous articles about the history of U.S. Army medicine and the Romanian Army during World War II. Cornell University Press recently published his book, Romania’s Holy War: Soldiers, Motivation, and the Holocaust (2021).
The views and information shared by Dr. Harward are his alone and do not represent the official position of the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Defense, or U.S. Government.
Mario Daniels is the DAAD Fachlektor at the Duitsland Instituut at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses on the history of the political economy of sharing (and denying) knowledge in the field of high technology in the international relations since World War I. Specifically, Daniels works on a political history of economic espionage in the United States and Germany in the 20th century. Moreover, he is an expert for the history of the U.S. export control systems that regulates high technology trade since 1945. Daniels has recently published articles on U.S. national security controls over foreign direct investment, the interplay of export controls with visa denials for scientists in the Cold War, and the role of secrecy and export controls in U.S. basic and applied science.
John Krige is the Kranzburg Professor Emeritus in the School of History and Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the intersection between science, technology and foreign policy. Since being at Georgia Tech he has expanded his interest beyond the study of intergovernmental organizations in Western Europe to include an analysis of American and European relations during the cold war. His first monograph to develop that interest was American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe. He is the author of several additional books, including Sharing Knowledge, Shaping Europe, and the editor of Knowledge Flows in a Global Age: A Transnational Approach.
Together Dr. Daniels and Dr. Krige are the co-authors of the book Knowledge Regulation and National Security in Postwar America, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Joyce Harrison is editor in chief at the University Press of Kansas, where she acquires books in military and intelligence studies and general-interest books about Kansas and the surrounding region. She has worked at several university presses during her career in publishing, acquiring in anthropology, religious studies, folklore, Black studies, German studies, and Appalachian studies, among other fields. Joyce has a B.A. in music from Towson University and an M.A. in musicology from the Eastman School of Music. She began the music history & theory PhD program at the University of Chicago but soon decided to change directions and pursue a career in publishing! These days Joyce is a dynamic presence in the academic publishing world, an advocate for authors, and an enthusiastic representative of the University Press of Kansas wherever she goes!
Dr. Edward A. Kaplan is Dean of the School of Strategic Landpower at the U.S. Army War College. In this role, he is responsible for facilitating the education of senior officers in the Army, other services, partner nations, and senior civilians. Dr. Kaplan is a 1994 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. After being awarded his master’s degree in History at the University of Calgary in 1997, Dr. Kaplan attended Intelligence training at Goodfellow Air Force Base, in Texas, where he was a distinguished graduate. He served in various intelligence roles at Beale Air Force Base, California, and deployed to directly support U-2 aircrew at overseas locations. In 1998, he became a Watch Officer and Flight Commander at the Misawa Cryptologic Operations Center, where he directed the mission of a joint Army, Navy and Air Force team.
Following his time in Japan, and a NATO deployment in support of U.S. operations in Kosovo, Dr. Kaplan reported for duty as an instructor in the History Department at the U.S. Air Force Academy. During his three-year tour, Dr. Kaplan deployed to Sarajevo for six months, was promoted to Assistant Professor, taught World History and advanced courses in American Foreign Policy and the Cold War, and directed the core Military History course. Dr. Kaplan then became the Readiness Flight Commander at the 607th Air Intelligence Squadron at Osan Air Base, Korea. Dr. Kaplan then returned to the University of Calgary where he received his Doctorate in History.
In 2007, Dr. Kaplan arrived at the Directorate of Intelligence on the Joint Staff, where he served as a strategic planner, an Assistant Deputy Director for Intelligence in the National Military Command Center and as the Executive Officer for the Director for Intelligence. During that assignment, Dr. Kaplan deployed to Camp Victory, Iraq where he was a speechwriter and strategist for the Commander of Multi-National Forces-Iraq, before returning to the position of Senior Editor for the daily intelligence briefing prepared for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense. In the summer of 2010, Dr. Kaplan returned to the Air Force Academy History Department as an Assistant Professor. He acted as the Deputy for Military History, Deputy Department Head, Acting Department Head, Director of the Dean’s Commander’s Action Group, and Professor and Head of the History Department, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado.
Dr. Kaplan retired from active duty in April 2020, in the rank of Colonel. He assumed the role of Professor of Strategic Studies in the Department of National Security and Strategy, until he assumed his present position in July 2021. He is the author of two books – To Kill Nations: American Strategy in the Air-Atomic Age and the Rise of Mutually Assured Destruction, and The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age, both from Cornell University Press.
Hello and welcome back to The Modern Scholar Podcast—I’m glad you’re here and I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful holiday season. Welcome to SEASON THREE of the show! It’s hard to believe we are here already, and to kick things off I have a wonderful and inspiring episode to share with you today, featuring my new friend Steve Hughes!
Steve Hughes is a sought-after speaker and consultant who helps people look and sound smart when they talk. He’s the author of Captivate: Presentations that Engage and Inspire, and he has been featured on NPR, BBC Radio, The Wall Street Journal, and Businessweek. Today he works with a select list of blue-chip clients including state and national associations, Fortune 500 companies, and leading universities. Steve holds a BA in French Literature and European History from the University of Kansas and an MBA in Marketing from Washington University’s Olin School of Business, where he was awarded the prestigious Olin Cup.
Steve lives by the mantra that great speakers are made, not born—and having attended many academic and professional conferences over the past few years, and having delivered a number of different presentations myself in a variety of different settings, I can honestly say that I believe everyone—EVERYONE—can benefit from what Steve has to say.
Our guest today is Dr. Michael W. Hankins. Dr. Hankinsis the Curator for US Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps post-World War II Aviation at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. He is also an Assistant Editor of From Balloons to Drones, a scholarly web journal for the study of air power, and host of the From Balloons to Drones Podcast. He is a former Assistant Professor of Strategy at the USAF Air Command and Staff College eSchool of Graduate PME, and a former instructor of military history at the USAF Academy. He earned a masters in history from the University of North Texas in 2013 and a PhD in history from Kansas State University in 2018. Dr. Hankins’ book, Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia was recently released from Cornell University Press, and we’ll be talking about this great book on the podcast today.
Dr. Nicholas Mays is an Assistant Professor of History at Baldwin Wallace University. After growing up on the west side of Cleveland, Mays earned a bachelor’s degree from Baldwin Wallace and then a master’s and his PhD in history from Kent State University – which is where we crossed paths – we were both in a post-colonial seminar there taught by Dr. Shane Strate.
Dr. Mays’ chief scholarly interests are 19th and 20th century America, and the African-American experience from the 17th century to present and Colonial Africa. His particular focus is on American slavery and the black experience, civil rights activism in the North, post-1965 black freedom struggles, hip-hop music and activism, and urban America.
Dr. Samuel J. Redmanis an Associate Professor of History and Director of the Public History Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on studies American social, cultural, and intellectual history, and he received his B.A. in anthropology and history from the University of Minnesota at Morris and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American history since 1607 at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Redman is the author of three books. His first book, Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums was published by Harvard University Press in 2016, andwas selected as a Choice Top-25 Outstanding Academic Title, Nature Top-20 book of 2016, and Smithsonian Top History Book of 2016. His second book, Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology (Harvard University Press 2021) explores the history and legacy of salvage anthropology, and then his third book, The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience was published by NYU Press in 2022, and is the subject of our conversation today,examines how cultural institutions responded to episodes of crisis over the past century in the United States.
Before graduate school, Redman worked at the Field Museum of Natural History, Science Museum of Minnesota, and History Colorado. While at Berkeley, Redman served as the Lead Interviewer for the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront Oral History Project. He also helped to organize Berkeley’s Japanese American Confinement Sites Oral History Project and San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge Oral History Project. In collaboration with a New York City based non-profit organization, Voices in Contemporary Art, he has co-led Artist Interview Workshops for more than 300 conservators, curators, educators, and arts professionals.
Jasmine Zandi is a Canadian native who has called Arkansas home since 2011. She graduated from Hendrix College with a dual B.A. in French, and International Development and Sustainability. Throughout her undergraduate studies, Jasmine completed internships with No Kid Hungry, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Toledo Museum of Art. Post-graduation, Jasmine served a year-long service term as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance. In 2021, Jasmine became the new Coordinator of the Be Mighty Little Rock program, a citywide anti-hunger campaign connecting kids and teens to free USDA meals. Be Mighty operates through the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS). Since she began, the program has expanded beyond USDA meal distribution to include garden & nutrition education programs, and SNAP office hours during which patrons are given information on federal programs designed to alleviate food insecurity. Whether national or local, Jasmine has a passion for nonprofit work and empowering her community with the resources needed to thrive!
Dr. Laura Portwood-Stacer is a publishing consultant and developmental editor who helps academic authors at all career stages navigate the book publishing process. Her company Manuscript Works offers regular workshops and online programs to assist writers in drafting book proposals and connecting with scholarly publishers. She is the author of The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors, published by Princeton University Press in 2021, which is the subject of our conversation today!
Dr. Margaret Sankey earned a PhD at Auburn University in European military history, and taught military history, security studies and political science at Minnesota State Moorhead before joining the staff at the U.S. Air Force Air War College as the director of research and electives. Currently, she is Air University’s research coordinator in the Office of Sponsored Programs matching and supporting Air University assets with Air Force research problems. Her publications include Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion: Preventing and Punishing Insurrection in Early Hanoverian Britain,Women and War in the 21stCentury, and the North American Conference on British Studies Walter D. Love Prize-winning article, co-written with Dr. Daniel Szechi, “Elite Culture and the Decline of Scottish Jacobitism, 1715-1745,” in Past and Present. Dr. Sankey is also the author of Blood Money: How Criminals, Militias, Rebels, and Warlords Finance Violence, published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press, and this book is the subject of our conversation today.
Christopher DeCristofaroreceived his master’s degree in Library Science in 2001. He is currently the Head of Digital Services (which encompasses Information Technology and Studio makerspaces) at the Sachem Library in Suffolk County New York. He is also past President and current member at large on the Computer and Technical Services Division of the Suffolk County Library Association. Previously, he worked in the Adult Services Department at the Longwood Public Library from 2002-2015, and he also served as an Academic Librarian at Dowling College from 2007-2010. He teaches many classes that are based in technology along with one-on-one sessions with patrons. Chris has also spoken at various library and technology association conferences, meetings and seminars.
Robert Johnson is currently the Information Technologist at The Emma S. Clark Library in Setauket, Suffolk County, New York. Robert is an active member of the Computer and Technical Services Division of the Suffolk County Library Association. He has spoken at numerous seminars and organizations across the Northeast region, including the New York Library Association. He was previously the Information Technologist at the Port Jefferson Free Library in Port Jefferson, New York.
Together Chris and Bob are the creators and hosts of The Library Pros Podcast, a show about libraries, library technology, and everything in between! Earlier this year I participated as a guest on their show, and you can find that episode here!
Dr. Susan Colbourn is the Associate Director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (TISS), based at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. A diplomatic and international historian, she is interested in questions of strategy and security in the atomic age. She specializes in the history of the Cold War with a focus on NATO, the politics of European security, and the role of nuclear weapons in international politics and society. Prior to joining the Triangle Institute, she held fellowships at Yale University’s International Security Studies program and at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto. She is the author of Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Jonathan Rees is a Professor of History at Colorado State University – Pueblo, where he has received the University Award for Faculty Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activity and been recognized as an Outstanding Faculty Member in the College of Humanities and Social Science. He is the author of numerous books, including Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1914-1942, Refrigeration Nation: A History of Ice, Appliances, and Enterprise, Education Is Not An App, which he co-authored with Jonathan Poritz, and his latest book The Fulton Fish Market: A History, which is the subject of our conversation today. Dr. Rees also recently finished serving two terms on the National Council of the American Association of University Professors.
Dr. Adam Seipp is Associate Dean of the Graduate and Professional School at Texas A&M University and is a member of the history faculty there, where he also serves as a Faculty Affiliate of the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy. Dr. Seipp’s bachelors, masters, and PhD were all completed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he served as Visiting Faculty before moving on to Texas A&M in 2005.
Dr. Seipp is the author of numerous books and other projects including The Ordeal of Peace: Demobilization and the Urban Experience in Britain and Germany, 1917-21, Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans and a German Town, 1945-52, and an edited volume that came out just a few years ago called Modern Germany in Transatlantic Perspective, along with Michael Meng. Dr. Seipp is also serving as the Chair of the Vandervort Prize Committee with the Society for Military History, which recognizes authors of outstanding articles published in the Journal of Military History.
Today's episode is a very special one, as I recently had the opportunity to visit with Alycia Asai. Alycia is the host, researcher and producer of the weekly podcast Civics & Coffee. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in History from Sonoma State University where she is returning to pursue graduate work. She fell in love with history at a young age thanks to a teacher who pointed out the beautiful flaws found throughout our past. She believes history is fun and engaging – if told the right way. When not creating new episodes for the podcast she enjoys traveling with her husband, running to 90’s hip hop, and planning her next Disneyland adventure.
As far as her show is concerned, Civics & Coffee is a weekly United States history podcast where Alycia explores the people and events in our past, all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. Episodes are released every Saturday and are generally less than 20 minutes each, unless she is featuring a guest. The show launched in August of 2020 and was recently featured in the Women Who Podcast Magazine for their anniversary issue.
Dr. John Delury is a professor of Chinese studies at the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies and Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea. A historian of modern China, he is the author of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century (Random House, 2013), with Orville Schell, which was translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. He follows Korean peninsula affairs closely and contributes to Foreign Affairs, 38 North, and Global Asia (where he is also book review editor). Dr. Delury is a senior fellow at the Asia Society, Pacific Century Institute, and China Policy Institute, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and National Committee on North Korea. He taught briefly at Brown University, Columbia University, and Peking University and was associate director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations in New York. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in history from Yale University. Most recently is the author of Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA’s Covert War in China, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. Margaret O’Mara is the Howard & Frances Keller Endowed Professor of History at the University of Washington. She writes and teaches about the growth of the high-tech economy, the history of U.S. politics, and the connections between the two. She is also Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians and a past fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education. She received her MA/PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and her BA from Northwestern University. Prior to her academic career, she worked in the Clinton White House and served as a contributing researcher at the Brookings Institution. Margaret is the author of Cities of Knowledge (Princeton, 2005), Pivotal Tuesdays (Penn Press, 2015), and The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (Penguin Press, 2019). She is a coauthor, with David Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, of forthcoming editions of a widely used United States history college textbook, The American Pageant (Cengage). She is a frequent contributor to the Opinion page of The New York Times, and her writing also has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Bloomberg Businessweek, Foreign Policy, the American Prospect, and Pacific Standard.
Dr. John Gans is the Managing Director of Executive Communications and Strategic Engagement at the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition, Gans teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on the international order, the politics and process of American foreign policy, and national security. He is also a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a board member at the World Affairs Council of New Jersey.
In the wake of the September 11th attacks, Gans was a press liaison at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, where he helped brief the media on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The experience drove his interest in public service and global affairs, and his desire to help individuals and institutions tell their stories and achieve their objectives, whether in war, for the bottom line, at the ballot box, in Washington, or in the marketplace of ideas.
In the years since, Gans served at the Pentagon as chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. He was the principal adviser to the secretary on the planning, positioning, and preparation of remarks, managed a team of writers, and drafted dozens of speeches delivered around the world on defense policy in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Previously, Gans worked for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. For a decade, he served in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
In 2019, Gans published White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War, and this book is the subject of our conversation today.
Ana Niño is the Librarian at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, located at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden in Fort Worth, Texas. Ana joined the team there in November 2021, and is responsible for managing the library, archival, and art collections. Ana attended Cornell University, where she studied Science & Technology Studies, and later earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. Ana’s background includes roles with the Dallas Public Library, the University of North Texas Libraries, the Carrollton Public Library, where she served as the Community Outreach Librarian, and the Dallas Morning News, where she served as a researcher.
Ray Tyler is the owner of Rose Creek Farms in Selmer, TN, which is a no-till, organic diversified vegetable farm growing and harvesting fresh produce 52 weeks a year which they sell direct to consumer as well as wholesale to numerous grocery stores in the area. Just to make things crystal clear – Ray and his family preside over a thriving farm that brings in almost half a million dollars every year on LESS than ONE ACRE of land! They have accomplished this by creating better growing systems and changing farm practices, and are able to manage year-round production, enjoy a near weed-free farm, and have created a sustainable and enjoyable life for themselves. This is the Modern Scholar podcast, and there can be no doubt that Ray Tyler is a scholar of modern farming, and modern lettuce production in particular! Ray is the author of The Farmer’s Guide to Growing Organic Lettuce, which focuses on the practical, need-to-know aspects of growing lettuce in extreme climates, and he has created the Small Farms, Big Change initiative which focuses on delivering online courses, coaching, and on-farm workshops to those interested in learning how to replicate the success of Rose Creek Farms and build their own sustainable farming lifestyle. Hear an earlier conversation with Ray Tyler here!
My guest today is Dr. David Bath. Dr. Bath is an Assistant Professor of History and Faculty Advisor for the Student Veteran Association at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma. He received his Bachelor’s in History from Texas A&M – Commerce and his Master’s in History from the University of North Dakota, and completed a Master’s in Strategic Intelligence at the National Intelligence University before moving back to complete his PhD in History at Texas A&M. He served as a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Air force from 1988 to 2009, with assignments such as Air Force Representative to the National Military Joint Intelligence Center, Counterterrorism Analyst for U.S Central Command, Chief of the Counterterrorism for U.S. Central Command deployed headquarters, and Deputy Director of Intelligence at the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, which of course, is a direct organizational descendent of the agency my research has focused on, the U.S. Air Force Security Service. Dr. Bath received the Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching from Rogers State University in 2019, and is the author of numerous book reviews and presentations as well as his first book, Assured Destruction: Building the Ballistic Missile Culture of the U.S. Air Force from the Naval Institute Press, which is the subject of our conversation today.
Dr. David Vaught is a professor of history at Texas A&M University. He is the author of five books: two on agricultural history in California in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; one on teaching large lecture classes; another on baseball in rural America; and, forthcoming with Texas A&M University Press this summer, Spitter: Baseball’s Notorious Gaylord Perry. The latter examines the Hall of Fame pitcher’s rich and revealing life experience—from his innovative ascent from rural poverty in eastern North Carolina to baseball stardom, to his subsequent descent to failure on the farm during the 1980s agricultural crisis. He is past president of the Agricultural History Society, former head of department, recipient of several teaching awards, and a lifelong fan of the San Francisco Giants.
Welcome to Season 2 of the Modern Scholar podcast! It's hard to believe that we are here already - thank you all for being part of this wonderful journey so far!
I have two very special guests today from the U.S. Naval Institute Press, an academic publisher with hundreds of exciting and important titles, including my forthcoming book, Rise of the Mavericks, hitting shelves in just a few months.
Adam Kane returned to the United States Naval Institute in January 2020 when he was named Director of Naval Institute Press. With more than a decade of publishing experience, Adam sets the strategic direction of the Press and its acquisitions programs and oversees the Institute’s Oral History Program.
Pat Carlin is a Senior Acquisitions Editor with years of experience managing editorial teams, authors, and advisory boards for both print and digital content in American history, military history, security studies, world geography, and world history.
Welcome to the VERY FIRST bonus episode of the show!
I have a few random thoughts about the history profession that I'd like to share - hopefully all of you find them useful!
A few fellow podcast shoutouts:
Military Historians Are People, Too! with Brian Feltman and Bill Allison
Civics and Coffee with Alycia Asai
Drafting the Past with Kate Carpenter
Check out these folks and their shows!
Dr. Sharon Morris is an Instructional Designer at Colorado Mountain College. She has a Master’s in Library and Information Science and a Ph.D. in Managerial Leadership in Libraries. Dr. Morris has co-designed state-level library leadership institutes, and served as an instructor, in Colorado, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. She also serves on the Leadership Team and is a core instructor for the Research Institute for Public Libraries. Dr. Morris is Adjunct Faculty at the University of Denver, Library and Information Science program, where she teaches Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness. She also provides workshops on leadership topics at national conferences, library staff days, and other library venues.
Kieran Hixon is the Rural and Small Libraries Consultant at the Colorado State Library. Kieran has served as President of the Association for Small and Rural Libraries and as a board member there, and is the leader of the Outstanding in their Field library leadership institute. Kieran has over 10 years experience offering professional development, both in-person and online, for rural libraries throughout the United States.
I first had the pleasure of meeting both Sharon and Kieran a few years ago when they facilitated a special session of the Arkansas State Library’s ALL-In Leadership Institute that I was participating in, and it was great to reconnect on this episode today!
My guest today is Hayley Hasik, who is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern Mississippi, and her research interests include 20th century U.S. history with an emphasis on war and memory, the Vietnam War, veterans’ experiences, and cultural history. Hayley’s current research focuses on examining the legacy of the “Helicopter War” in Vietnam. Her project seeks to uncover how and why helicopters became such an integral part of Vietnam War history and memory. Hayley has extensive oral history experience and co-founded the East Texas War and Memory Project in 2012. Her previous scholarly research focused on the American POW experience during World War II and the Vietnam helicopter experience using the life history of a Warrant Officer as a case study.
Hayley has presented at numerous academic conferences and has published several articles in the Sound Historian and War, Literature, and the Arts. Hayley is also a recipient of the 2022 Mark Grimsley Social Media Fellowship and 2019 Russell Weigley Travel Grant, both from the Society for Military History. She is a Graduate Fellow at the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society there at Southern Miss for 2021-2022, and she is working under the direction of Dr. Heather Stur.
Dr. Matthew Ford is an Honorary Historical Consultant to the Royal Armouries (UK), the founding Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal for Military History, a former West Point Fellow and a Visiting Scholar at the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. His research focuses on war and the data-saturated battlefields of the 21st century, and he is the author of numerous articles and other works, including his first book, Weapon of Choice: Small Arms and the Culture of Military Innovation.
Dr. Andrew Hoskins is an Interdisciplinary Professor in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow in the UK. He is the co-founder of two academic journals, Memory Studies from SAGE and Digital War from Palgrave MacMillan. His research is focused on enhancing an interdisciplinary understanding of how and why human society is being transformed by digital tech and media, and the consequences for forgetting, memory, privacy, security, and the nature, experience and effects of contemporary warfare.
Together Dr. Ford and Dr. Hoskins are the co-authors of the book Radical War: Data, Attention and Control in the 21st Century, which is the subject of our conversation today.
My guest today is Trent Hone, an award-winning naval historian and an expert on U.S. Navy tactics and doctrine. He is the author of Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898–1945, which explores how the U.S. Navy developed learning mechanisms before World War II that accelerated victory during that conflict. His article, “U.S. Navy Surface Battle Doctrine and Victory in the Pacific” was awarded the U.S. Naval War College’s Edward S. Miller Prize and the Naval History and Heritage Command’s Ernest M. Eller Prize. His essay, “Guadalcanal Proved Experimentation Works” earned second place in the 2017 Chief of Naval Operations Naval History Essay Contest. Mr. Hone’s latest book, Mastering the Art of Command: Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and Victory in the Pacific War, is a detailed examination of Admiral Nimitz's leadership during World War II. It describes how Nimitz used his talents to help win crucial victories against the forces of Imperial Japan and create the conditions for victory in the Pacific.
Dr. Jonna Perrillo has been an education historian and a professor of English Education at the University of Texas of El Paso since 2005. Her scholarship focuses on the history of schools and citizenship, both in the sense of how schools define and translate citizenship values and how they enfranchise or disenfranchise students and teachers. She is the author of two books: Uncivil Rights: Teachers, Unions, and the Battle for School Equity(winner of the New Scholar Book Award from the American Education Research Association)and Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands. She also writes opinion pieces advocating for school equity and reform issues, and has been published in the Boston Review, Washington Post, Education Week, El Paso Matters, the El Paso Times, and a number of national teachers’ publications. Her interviews with journalists on Educating the Enemy have appeared on the Texas Standard and Time magazine.
My guest today is Dr. Mary Elizabeth Walters, and sheis an Assistant Professor of Military and Security Studies in the Department of Airpower at the Air Command and Staff College. Walters received both her MA and PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches Airpower I, Airpower II, War Theory, and electives on strategy and Star Wars, the Balkans, and peacekeeping. Her book project, Hospitality is the Law of the Mountains: The 1999 Kosovo War, argues that Albanians – motivated by the Albanian concept of hospitality – took strangers into their homes and communities and changed the course of the refugee crisis. Their actions bought time for the U.S. military to mobilize, rebuild Albania’s shattered infrastructure, and bring in massive amounts of aid. Additionally, she recently began research on a second project on Operation Allies Rescue/Operation Allies Welcome, which is the U.S. military support for the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans spanning 2021-2022. Before joining ACSC, Walters was an assistant professor in the History Department at Kansas State University where she taught graduate and undergraduate courses on American military history, the history of strategy, and the Vietnam War(s).
*The views and opinions presented by Dr. Walters are solely her own and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of Air University, the U.S. Air Force, or the U.S. Government.
I my guest today is Dr. Ricardo Herrera, an award-winning historian and Professor of Military History at the School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. A scholar of eighteenth and nineteenth-century U.S. military history, he is the author of Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2021), For Liberty and the Republic: The American Citizen as Soldier, 1775-1861 (New York: New York University Press, 2015), and of numerous articles and chapters on U.S. military history. Dr. Herrera is the recipient of several residential research fellowships, including a Maynooth University (Ireland) Arts & Humanities Institute Visiting Fellowship, 2020-2021; a Residential Research Fellowship (2016-2017) at The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, Mount Vernon, Virginia; a Society of the Cincinnati Scholars’ Grant (2015-2016); and a Residential Research Fellowship at the David Library of the American Revolution (2014-2015). Dr. Herrera has also been awarded a 2016 Moncado Prize by the Society for Military History for “‘[T]he zealous activity of Capt. Lee’: Light-Horse Harry Lee and Petite Guerre,” and two Distinguished Writing Awards from the Army Historical Foundation in 2012 and 2021 for “Foraging and Combat Operations at Valley Forge, February-March 1778” and “‘[O]ur Army will hut this Winter at Valley forge’: George Washington, Decision-Making, and the Councils of War.” He is now completing the tentatively titled A Most Uncommon Soldier: The Life, Letters, and Journal of Edward Ashley Bowen Phelps, 1814-1893, an edited collection, to be published by the University Press of Kansas.
Welcome back to the Modern Scholar podcast! Our guest today is Dr. John Curatola, a retired Marine Corps officer of twenty-two years and a history professor at the Army Command and General Staff College. During his Marine Corps career he served in Somalia, Iraq, and was a lead planner for the 2005 Indian Ocean Tsunami Relief operation. He taught both joint operations and military history at Fort Leavenworth and was named the college’s Instructor of the Year. His academic work focuses on World War II aviation and the early Cold War period. His first book, Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow: The Strategic Air Command and American War Plans at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-1950,addressed the nature of the American atomic monopoly from 1945-1949. His lectures can be seen on both CSPAN and You tube and he has given numerous presentations at international history conferences. His most recent book, Autumn of Our Discontent: Fall 1949 and the Crises in American National Security, deals with the origins of NSC-68 and the events that occurred in the fall of 1949 leading to a change in the American military tradition of a small peacetime military. He is an FAA licensed pilot and an aviation enthusiast who considers himself a frustrated P-51 pilot that was born 40 years too late.
Join me today for a fascinating conversation with Kate Carpenter! Kate is a doctoral candidate in the history of science at Princeton University, with an MA in history (public history emphasis) from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her dissertation is a scientific and social history of storm chasing in the second half of the twentieth-century United States, which examines scientific and hobbyist storm chasers investigating severe storms and tornadoes within the environmental context of the Great Plains. She is also the producer and host of Drafting the Past, a podcast about the craft of writing history, one of my favorite new podcast discoveries!
My guest today is Crystal Gates! Crystal serves as the Executive Director of the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock, Arkansas. She is building upon their past successes with innovative, patron-centric services, and relevant curriculum and resources.
Crystal also served as Director of the Jackson Parish Library in Jonesboro, Louisiana. Under her leadership, JPL was named one of the best libraries in the nation as a 3 Star Library two years in a row (2014 and 2015 Library Journal Index of Public Library Services).
Gates has a long history of leading by serving both professionally and in civic organizations. She is a fellow Past-President of the Arkansas Library Association, President-Elect of the Southeastern Library Association, Treasurer for the advocacy group Advocates for All Arkansas Libraries, and serves in many other roles as well. As a speaker at library conferences, Crystal shares both her successes and lessons learned from implementing new services, directing capital projects, and advocating for libraries.
Crystal holds a Masters of History from Louisiana Tech University and a Master of Library and Information Science from Louisiana State University.
Today I have a very special guest - Dr. Paul J. Springer. Dr. Springer is the Chair of the Department of Research and a full professor of comparative military studies at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. He holds a PhD in military history from Texas A&M University. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including America’s Captives: Treatment of POWs from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror; Military Robots and Drones: A Reference Handbook; Transforming Civil War Prisons: Lincoln, Lieber, and the Laws of War; Cyber Warfare: A Reference Handbook; and Outsourcing War to Machines: The Military Robotics Revolution. In addition, he has published hundreds of shorter pieces, on a variety of subjects including military history, terrorism, strategy, technology, and military robotics. Dr. Springer is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the series editor for both the History of Military Aviationand Transforming Warseries, produced by the U.S. Naval Institute Press. Currently, he is completing a collective biography of the West Point Class of 1829.
PJ has also been a very important mentor in my life, not only with regard to early scholarly engagement and conference, but also helping me navigate the academic publishing process!
My guest today is Victoria Taylor! Victoria is an award-winning aviation historian based at the University of Hull and Sheffield Hallam University, where she recently defended her PhD thesis on the Luftwaffe and National Socialism in the Third Reich. Her main historical focus is on British and German aviation during the interwar period and the Second World War. In recognition of her PhD research, she was awarded the 2020 Royal Air Force Museum Doctoral Academic Prize in 2021. She also completed her Masters in Historical Research on Britain’s wartime and post-war mythologization of Operation CHASTISE – better known as the “Dambusters raid” – at Hull, for which she was awarded the Royal Air Force Museum’s RAF Centenary Master’s Academic Prize in 2019.
In 2020, she served as narrator, co-writer, and historical consultant on Inside the Battle of Britain, the second series of the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund podcast series All Stations. This five-part series was nominated for a Best Independent Podcast award by the Radio Academy in 2021. Victoria has contributed to popular history magazines such as BBC History Extra, Iron Cross Magazine and Britain at War, along with publishing in academic journals and volumes. Since 2018, she has widely featured as an onscreen expert in history documentaries made for BBC Two, Channel 5, the Smithsonian Channel, History Hit, and SBS Australia. Victoria is an Assistant Editor of the scholarly online airpower platform From Balloons to Drones and serves on the Editorial Board of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Journal of Aeronautical History.
*Apologies for a brief interruption in Dr. Lewis's audio. This was due to a brief unstable Internet connection and was missed in the editing process.
Today's guest is Dr. Adrian R. Lewis. Dr. Lewisis the David B. Pittaway Professor of Military History at the University of Kansas. He has researched and written extensively on war, military affairs, and the Armed Forces of the United States for over twenty years. Dr. Lewis’ publications include The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Enduring Freedom, which now in its third edition, published in 2018; as well as Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory, published in 2001 and still considered to be the best analysis of Allied amphibious warfare doctrine in the European Theater of Operations, as well as numerous book chapters and articles. Dr. Lewis has taught at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point; the University of California, Berkeley where he served as the Professor of Military Science, and the University of North Texas, Denton where he served as the Chair of the Department of History. Lewis earned his B.A. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley; M.A. in History from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; MBA from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville; and Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. Dr. Lewis is a retired soldier in the U.S. Army. He served with the 2-1 Infantry and 2-23 Infantry, 9th Infantry Division, and the 2-75 Infantry (Ranger). He has served in Korea, Alaska, Panama, and Germany.
Welcome to the Modern Scholar podcast!
I'm glad you're here, and thank you for joining me today! Why was I inspired to create this series? Listen on and find out!
My guests today are Dr. Bill Allison and Dr. Brian Feltman, both from Georgia Southern University, and co-hosts of the wonderful podcast, Military Historians Are People, Too!
Dr. Bill Allison is a scholar of American military history, specifically the Vietnam War. He is a Professor of History at Georgia Southern University, joining the faculty there as Chair of the Department of History in 2008. After earning a BA and MA in History at East Texas State University in 1989 and 1991, he completed his Ph.D. in history at Bowling Green State University in 1995. He then taught at the University of Saint Francis (Indiana) before joining the History Department at Weber State University from 1999-2008. During the 2002-2003 academic year, he was Visiting Professor in the Department Strategy and International Security at the USAF Air War College and later served as Distinguished Professor of Military History at the USAF School for Advanced Air and Space Studies from 2010-2011. He also served two years as the General Harold K. Johnson Visiting Chair in Military History at the US Army War College (2012-2014). He is a former Trustee and Vice-President of the Society for Military History and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Military History as well as editor for Routledge’s Critical Moments in American History series. He has also served on the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Committee and was awarded the Army’s Outstanding Civilian Service Medal in 2014. Since 2019, he is the series editor for the Modern War Studies series at the University Press of Kansas. His numerous books include The Gulf War, 1990-1991 from Palgrave MacMillan, My Lai: An American Atrocity in the Vietnam War from Johns Hopkins, and Military Justice in Vietnam: The Rule of Law in an American War from Kansas.
Dr. Brian Feltman is an Associate Professor of History and Assistant Chair of the Department of History at Georgia Southern University, where he joined the faculty in 2012. He completed his BA and MA at Clemson University and his PhD at the Ohio State University. As a specialist in Modern Germany, Dr. Feltman completed a post-doctorate fellowship at the University of Cologne in Germany, and has received multiple research grants from German institutions. His first book, The Stigma of Surrender: German Prisoners, British Captors, and Manhood in the Great War and Beyondfrom the University of North Carolina Press received the Edward M. Coffman Dissertation Prize from the Society for Military History, which is awarded annually to recognize the best dissertation in military history. Dr. Feltman has since served on the Coffman Prize Committee. Additional works include chapters in edited volumes – most recently a contribution to Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts from Kansas, edited by Daniel Krebs and Lorien Foote, as well as Finding Common Ground: New Directions in First World War Studies from Brill in 2010 and edited by Michael Neiberg and Jennifer Keene.
Welcome to the Modern Scholar podcast! All around the world there are individuals doing great things — asking great questions, conducting meaningful research, innovating, and building better communities. In this series we interview librarians, scholars, and community leaders who are not only performing cutting edge work, but share the same passion for educating, encouraging, and empowering those around them. Thank you for listening, and please consider subscribing as we build a community of modern scholars, just like you. Let’s do this!