Our guest today is the artsy, funny, and brilliant Kate Clarke Lemay. Kate WAS s an historian at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, and is NOW the Director of the US Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) at Carlisle Barracks, PA. She was the lead historian for the signature exhibitions America’s Presidents and Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence. and is currently curating a major exhibition titled 1898: American Imperial Visions and Revisions, which will open on April 28, 2023! Kate also serves as director of PORTAL, the National Portrait Gallery's Scholarly Center. She was Assistant Professor of Art History at Auburn University at Montgomery and Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Brigham Young University. Kate earned a BA in Art History and French from Syracuse University and a PhD in Art History and American Studies from Indiana University.

Kate's publications include Triumph of the Dead: American WWII Cemeteries, Monuments and Diplomacy in France (Alabama, 2018), which was awarded a Terra Foundation in American Art publication. In 2019, she published the eponymous catalog for the Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence exhibit with Princeton University Press. The book received the 2021 Smithsonian Secretary’s Prize for Excellence in Research as well as the 2020 Amelia Bloomer Book Award from the American Library Association. Kate was a guest editor for a special issue on transatlantic diplomacy and war cemeteries for The International Journal of Military History and Historiography. 

Kate is a Fulbright Scholar and her work has been supported by the Terra Foundation in American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Research Center, and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the Caen Mémorial Museum in France. She is a Presidential Counselor to the National WWII Museum, an advisor to the National Women's Suffrage Monument Foundation, and sits on the Advisory Board of the Association of Historians of American Art’s Panorama Journal.

Join us for a fun and interesting chat with Kate Lemay. We'll talk Delaware, boarding school, researching at the American Battlefield Monuments Commission offices in France, suffering Friend-of-the-Pod Brian Linn's critique of Imperial Visions and Revisions, Foo Fighters, and being BBQ-adjacent. Speaking of which, shout out to Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse, New York!

As always, subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your pods, and check out the Swag Store on Zazzle! Rec.: 04/14/2023

We're back with Season 7! Today's guest is Classicist Jessica H. Clark of Florida State University. Jessica is Professor of Classics and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Classics, coming to Tallahassee from California State University, Chico. Among her many scholarly pursuits, Jessica studies the Roman military during the Republic Period. Her publications include Triumph in Defeat: Military Loss and the Roman Republic (Oxford), Brill's Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society (edited with Brian Turner), and most recently Women in Fragments: Alternative Histories in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Wisconsin). She serves on the editorial boards of Brill's Historiography of Rome and Its Empire and the Warfare in the Ancient Mediterranean World series, and was the Program Chair for the Society for Military History 2026 conference.

What a way to kick off Season 7! We'll talk Boston, the woods of Northern California, reading Latin, The Prince of Leeches, Springsteen, Gladiator, and more, while ignoring the obvious question: "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

Shoutout to Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas, and all the roadside smokers in Tallahassee!

Rec.: 08/20/2026

Our guest today is the guitar-playing, hiking, marathon-running, American Studies guy-turned-historian David Kieran! Dave is an Associate Professor and the Colonel Richard R. Hallock Distinguished Chair in Military History at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Before coming to Columbus State, he was associate professor and chair of the history department at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA, where he also served as coordinator for the American Studies program. Dave was also a visiting assistant professor in the American Studies Department at Franklin & Marshall College and in the History Department at Skidmore College. He earned a BA in English from Connecticut College and a PhD in American Studies from George Washington University.

A scholar of the post-Vietnam American military, Dave is the author of Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military’s Mental Health Crisis (NYU Press) and Forever Vietnam: How A Divisive War Changed American Public Memory (University of Massachusetts Press). He has also edited or co-edited several volumes, including The War of My Generation: Youth Culture and the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press) and At War: The Military and American Culture in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Rutgers University Press), with Edwin A. Martini. David’s articles have been published in War & Society, the Journal of American Studies, and the Journal of War and Culture Studies, and he has contributed to numerous edited volumes. Finally, he has written for the Washington Post, Psychology Today, and Slate. His new project is tentatively titled How the Army Saved Itself: Maxwell R. Thurman and the Army’s Post-Vietnam Metamorphosis.

Dave has two awesome dogs, has run over a dozen marathons, and has more guitars than Bill, which is a sore point with Bill. Join us for a great chat about interdisciplinary approaches to doing history, interviewing retired generals, running marathons, mental health issues in the American military, Bruce Springsteen, Alabama white sauce, acoustic viz electric guitars - and more!

And forgive Bill's kitchen renovation noise! Military Historians have kitchens, too!

Shoutout to Smoke Bourbon and BBQ in Columbus!

Rec.: 04/06/2023

Our guest today is Civil War scholar Lesley Gordon. Lesley is the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama. Prior to moving to Tuscaloosa, she was a professor of history at the University of Akron, and she started her academic career at Murray State University. Lesley received her BA from the College of William and Mary, and her M.A. and PhD from the University of Georgia.

Lesley’s first book General George E. Pickett in Life and Legend (UNC Press) was a History Book Club Selection. She published “This Terrible War”: The Civil War and its Aftermath with Daniel E. Sutherland and Michael Fellman in 2003 and the book is now in its third edition. In 2014, Lesley published A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War (LSU Press). She has also co-edited four volumes, including Intimate Strategies of the Civil War: Military Commanders and Their Wives, with Carol K. Bleser (Oxford), and Race and Gender at War: Writing American Military History, with Friend-of-the-Pod Andrew Huebner, which is forthcoming with the University of Alabama Press. She has also written more than a dozen essays and articles.

Lesley is extremely active in her field and she is currently the president of the Society of Civil War Historians. She chairs the editorial board at the University of Alabama Press and served on the editorial board of The Journal of the Civil War Era. She is a current member of the advisory board for Civil War Times. Since 2009, Lesley has been an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer.

Join us for a fun and fascinating chat with Lesley Gordon. We'll talk girls drawing Civil War soldiers in middle school, being a tour guide at Mark Twain's home, sports bandwagons, Noah Wyle, writing biography, a little Alison Krause, and Daisy Joines & The Six, so tune in!

Check out the MHPTPodcast Swag Store on Zazzle!

Rec.: 03/14/2023

Today's guest is Martin Thomas. Martin is Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Histories of Violence and Conflict at the University of Exeter in the UK. He was also the first director of Exeter's Centre for the Study of War, State, and Society. Before joining the faculty at Exeter, Martin taught at the University of the West of England in Bristol for eleven years. He has held visiting professorships and fellowships at Sciences Po. Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Studies. Martin received his BA and PhD from Oxford University.

Martin is the author of ten books and dozens of articles and book chapters. His many publications include The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire with co-author Andrew Thompson, Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882-1956 (Oxford) with co-author Richard Toye in 2017, and The Civilianization of War: The Changing Civil–Military Divide, 1914–2014, with Andrew Barros (Cambridge). Martin's solo publications include Fight or Flight: Britain, France, and their Roads from Empire (Oxford), Violence and Colonial Order: Police, Workers, and Protest in the European Colonial Empires, 1918-40 (Cambridge), and The French Empire at War, 1940-45 (Manchester).

Martin was awarded the Philip Leverhulme prize for outstanding research in 2002 and currently holds a three-year Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. He has also been a fellow of the Independent Social Research Foundation. Martin has been a member of the editorial boards of the International History Review, Intelligence and National Security, Diplomacy & Statecraft, War & Society, French Historical Studies, and Cambridge’s Studies in the Social & Cultural History of Modern Warfare.

Join us for a really interesting chat with Martin Thomas. We'll talk teaching global history, the nature of colonial violence, old French ladies with baskets of hand grenades, League One football, and Little Feat! 

Be sure to check out the MHPTPodcast Swag Store on Zazzle! 

Rec.: 03/13/2023

Our guest today is former journalist and now historian Vanya Eftimova Bellinger. Vanya is Assistant Professor of Strategy and Policy Development at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She previously served as an assistant professor at Air University’s Global College of Professional Military Education and a visiting assistant professor at the US Army War College. Vanya received her BA in Public Relations and Communications at Sofia University, St. Kliment Ohridski, in Sofia, Bulgaria, and her MA in Military History at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. She recently defended her dissertation for the PhD in History at King’s College, London. But before all that, Wanya spent twenty years as a journalist for Bulgarian and German media, including stints with Economedia and Bulgarian National Television, as well as a journalism fellowship at the Free University of Berlin.

Vanya is the author of Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War (Oxford University Press). Her Journal of Military History article, “The Other Clausewitz: Findings from the Newly Discovered Correspondence between Marie and Carl von Clausewitz’” was awarded the Society for Military History’s Moncado Prize. She recently published “Lieber and Clausewitz: The Understanding of Modern War and the Theoretical Origins of General Orders No. 100” in the Journal of Civil War Era and “When Resources Drive Strategy: Understanding Clausewitz/Corbett’s War Limited by Contingent” in Military Strategy Magazine. Vanya sits on the Military Strategy Magazine’s Editorial Advisory Panel and frequently contributes to War on the Rocks and The Strategy Bridge. 

Vanya’s journalism experience makes her an energetic go-getter. We’ll talk about growing up with ‘technical intelligentsia” parents in Bulgaria, the fame of being on a Bulgarian Sunday morning news program, working in the German archives, Bulgarian moussaka, and the band Ostava, plus a little Clausewitz. Join us for a fun and fascinating chat with Vanya Bellinger!

And Check out our new @MHPTPodcast Swag Store!

Rec.: 03/13/2023

Our guest today is the prolific scholar and Arsenal supporter Gary D. Sheffield. Gary is Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Institute of the University of Buckingham and Professor Emeritus at the University of Wolverhampton, where he set up the First World War Programme. He was previously Chair of War Studies at the University of Birmingham and Professor of Modern History at King's College London. He also served as Land Warfare Historian on the Higher Command and Staff Course at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. Gary earned his undergraduate and MA degrees in History at the University of Leeds and went on to take his PhD at King’s College, London.

Gary’s list of publications is extensive. He is the author or editor of more than 15 books. His book Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities was a bestseller. Gary’s contribution to The British General Staff: Innovation and Reform earned him a share of the Templer Medal in 2003. The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army was selected as a military book of the year by The Times and shortlisted for the Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature. Among Gary’s numerous other books are Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in The British Army in the Era of the First World War, The Somme: A New History, A Short History of the First World War, and The First World War in 100 Objects. He is currently completing a project titled Civilian Armies: British and Dominions Soldiers’ Experience in the Two World Wars, which will be published by Yale University Press.

Gary is a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, he sits on the Advisory Boards of the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, the Academic Advisory Panel of the National Army Museum, and the Academic Advisory Board of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust. He also served as the President of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and the Honorary President of the Western Front Association. Finally, Gary frequently appears on television and documentaries, writes for the press, and speaks to podcasters like us.

We can't thank Gary enough for taking the time with us. Join us for a delightful chat about reading military history as a kid, Tony Adams, battlefield tours, curries, and Bob Dylan. You'll enjoy this one.

Check out the @MHPTPodcast Swag Store!

Rec.: 03/03/2023

Today's guest is David Morgan-Owen. Dave WAS a Reader in the History of War in the Defence Studies Department at King's College, London, but is NOW a Senior Lecturer the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. From 2019-2021, he served as Academic Programme Director for the Intermediate Command and Staff Course (Land) and the MA in Military and Security Studies. He received all of his degrees from the University of Exeter and has a park bench on campus named in his honor after having spent so many years there (not really, but we could start a campaign?). He has held fellowships at the Modern War Institute at West Point, the National Museum of the Royal Navy, and the National Maritime Museum. Dave is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy. In 2016, he won the Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History.

Dave's first book The Fear of Invasion: Strategy, Politics, and British War Planning, 1880-1914 (Oxford) was awarded the Templer Medal for best first book from the Society for Army Historical Research in 2017. In 2020, he co-edited with Louis Halewood Economic Warfare and the Sea: Grand Strategies for Maritime Powers (Liverpool). Dave's articles have appeared in the English Historical Review, The Journal of Modern History, War in History, and War & Society, among others. His current project examines how the First World War challenged ideas of Britain as a ‘sea power’, and what these discussions meant for the prosecution of the conflict.

Dave's greatest accomplishment, however, is having convinced Season I guest Aimée Fox to become his partner, and along with Aimée is one of MHPT UK Podcast Dog Freddie's Human Feeding Units. Join us for an interesting and fun chat with David Morgan-Owen. We'll talk about rolling cannonballs on HMS Victory, being Jeremy Black's chauffeur, having tea with Sir Michael Howard, Riddle in the Sands, and Oasis, as well as some good military history. Check it out!

Rec.: 02/17/2023

Our guest today is one of the leading historians of the American soldier and the Second World War John C. McManus. John is the Curators’ Distinguished Professor of US Military History at the Missouri University of Science & Technology. He earned a BA in Sports Journalism and an MA in History from the University of Missouri, then received his PhD in History from the University of Tennessee (Bill says UT-Austin has the correct shade of orange; John, not surprisingly, disagrees). While at Tennessee, he served as the Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of War and Society and was also a participant in Tennessee's Normandy Scholars Program. John has taught at Missouri S&T for several years and in 2014 became Missouri S&T’s first Curators’ Distinguished Professor, an honor bestowed by the University of Missouri System. In 2018-2019, John was the Leo A. Shifrin Chair of Naval and Military History at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis.

John is the author of more than a dozen books, including: The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II; Deadly Sky: The American Combat Airman in World War II; Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers who made the Defense of Bastogne Possible; Grunts: The American Infantry Combat Experience: World War II through Iraq; September Hope: The American Side of a Bridge Too Far; The Dead and Those About to Die, D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach; and Hell Before Their Very Eyes: American Soldiers Liberate Concentration Camps in Germany, April 1945.  Most recently, John has been busy writing a trilogy on the Pacific War. The first book, Fire and Fortitude, won the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History. It was followed by Island Infernos: The US Army’s Pacific War Odyssey, 1944. The trilogy will end with To the End of the Earth: The US Army and the Downfall of Japan, 1945, which will be published in May 2023. For us podcast nerds, John is a frequent co-host with Al Murray and James Holland on the popular We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast. Follow John on Twitter @JohnCMcManus3!

Join us for a fascinating chat with John McManus. We'll discuss growing up in St. Louis, U2, writing, and toasted ravioli. Shout-out to Pappy's Smokehouse in St. Louis!

Rec.: 12/19/2022

Another good one! Today we are joined by Ed Westermann, who has just retired from Texas A&M University-San Antonio, where he is now Regents Professor Emeritus of History (congrats, Ed, on your second retirement!). Ed served in the US Air Force for 25 years as a helicopter pilot-turned-academic. He commissioned as a history major from the US Air Force Academy and earned MA degrees from Florida State University (History) and the USAF School for Advanced Air and Space Studies (Airpower, of course), before earning his PhD at UNC Chapel Hill. He is the author of Hitler's Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars: Comparing Genocide and Conquest (Oklahoma), Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Kansas), and Flak: German Anti-Aircraft Defenses, 1914-1945 (Kansas). His recent book is Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany (Cornell), which received the Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. He published numerous articles in top journals, such as War in History, the Journal of Military History, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Not bad for a military brat from Temple, Texas.

Join us for a really interesting chat with Ed Westermann - we'll talk about the SS and drinking culture (yes, that's a deep chat), flying UH1s, deciding to take the military's academic track, being mentored by Dennis Showalter and paying that forward, Fleetwood Mac, Berliner Pilsner, and transitioning to retirement. You'll enjoy this one, but we know you enjoy them all!

Speaking of "them all," this episode closes out Season 6 and, wait for it, is our 150th numbered episode! Thanks so much to each and every one of you for listening, sharing, and supporting us, and a special thanks to all of our guests - thanks for taking the time, and for taking the risk! We've got a long list of folks to get to yet, so we'll keep at it.

Shoutout to Old 300 BBQ in Blanco, Texas!

Rec.: 06/16/2026