News

We are about to start the new academic year 2017/18 at the University of Wolverhampton . Anyone interested in finding out about military history, war studies or conflict studies, go to my links page on this site and take a look at my university personal page and departmental page. Undergraduate degree courses at Wolverhampton with which I am involved include the BA War Studies and BA War Studies and History, and the the BSc Armed Forces degree, designed particularly for students who also wish to enter the British armed forces. 

Our next Undergraduate Open Day at the University of Wolverhampton is: Saturday 7 October, and ouir next Postgraduate Open Day on Thursday 14 September.

I am Co-Director of the First World War Research Group at the university, together with Professor Gary Sheffield ; we run Study Days open to the public three times a year. Contact either of us for further details. 

Details of our part-timeMA in the History of Britain and the First World War can be found at: http://courses.wlv.ac.uk/course.asp?code=HS006P31UVD and for our part-time MA Second World War Studies: Conflict, Society, Holocaust at http://courses.wlv.ac.uk/course.asp?code=HS007P31UVD
  
First World War Centenary Commemorations are continuing. This is a busy time for me in terms of First World War conferences and public speaking, along with my colleagues Professor John Buckley, Professor Gary Sheffield, Dr Laura Ugolini, Dr Simon Constantine, and Dr Spencer Jones.

We are holding our International Conference 1918-2018: The End of the War and the Reshaping of a Century at Wolverhampton University on 6-8 September 2018. Further details as things develop, or contact me.  

My own work on the First World War continues to focus on propaganda and media, with the occasional addition of the cavalry and various battles.This includes my involvement on behalf of the University of Wolverhampton in the recently-launched regional World War One Engagement Centre: Voices of War and Peace; go to the website: http://www.voicesofwarandpeace.org and if you click on the picture of the soldier on the bottom-left of the picture montage you will find a short article I have written.

My article for History Today, ‘Today’s History: A Muddy Vision of the Great War,’ (Volume 65 Issue 5, May 2015) was not the only complaint from professional historians with a lot of television experience that television involvement with the First World War as part of the commemorations has been mediocre-to-poor. My article has been well received by general readers of history, and totally ignored by the programme makers, as I expected.

In November 2013 we launched the Wolverhampton Military Studies Series of books from Helion publishing, with me as Series Editor. The first book in the series was Spencer Jones (ed.), Stemming the Tide: Officers and Leadership in the British Expeditionary Force 1914 (London: Helion, 2013), to which contributed a chapter on 'Sir John French and Command of the BEF' which may perhaps cause some people to rethink their views on both the Field Marshal and his army. For further details about the series see the Helion webpage: http://www.helion.co.uk/wolverhamptonmilitarystudies We are now about to publish the 25th book in the series, which is good going.

Recently published is a book of counterfactual scenarios about the First World War, Over the Top, edited by Peter Tsouras and Spencer Jones (London: Frontline, 2014). My contribution is called 'Kitchener of Arabia' and is about a plan the Allies never carried out for landing at Alexandretta on the Turkish coast.
 

I'm still Number One!  Back in 1990 I wrote for Osprey volume one in their Campaign Series, otherwise known as CAM 1 - Normandy 1944: Allied Landings and Breakout, which has also been reprinted by Praeger, and by Osprey in their Military History Series and in an edition in Spanish for del Prado. Next year is the 65th Anniversary of D-Day, and Osprey have told me that some of the text from Normandy 1944 will be used in a compilation book on the beach landings that they are bringing out. Early in 2009 I asked how Normandy 1944 had been selling, and this is the answer: Normandy 1944 has never been out of print, and has been reprinted at least once a year each year. It has sold over 12,600 copies in the UK, 12,300 copies in the USA, and 7,300 copies in Europe and the rest of the world, or over 32,200 copies in total. That doesn't put me in the bestseller class, but it's not bad, especially for the first book that I ever wrote. It really needs a new edition, but even after 20 years there isn't much about it that I think needs changing. You can buy it by going to my Publications page and following the link near the top. I also shamelessly recommend my three contributions to the Battlezone Normandy series, Utah Beach, Omaha Beach and Battle for Caen.

 

STOP PRESS: On Thursday 7 September I am giving the after-dinner keynote lecture 'Remembering the Desert War...' for the University of Wolverhampton international conference 'El Alamein 75 Years On'. The procedings of the 2014 confernece of the Prinz Albert Society at Coburg for which I gave the keynore address has just been published: Jasmin Hain, Frank-Lothar Kroll und Martin Munke, Der Ertse Weltkrieg in der deutchen und britischen Erinnerungskultur (Berlin: Dunker & Humblot, 2017).

Stephen Badsey giving the keynote address at the Canadian 17th Military History Colloquium at the University of Western Ontario, 5th May 2006.

Events Within The Last 18 Months Have Included:

April 2017, Invited Speaker on the military-media interface for the Pen & Sword Club at the Cavalry and Guards Club, Piccadilly, London.

June 2016, Invited Speaker at the Second Worlk War Research Group Workshop on 1940-1942, Kings College London Defence Studies Department at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Shrivenham.

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