Military Historians are People, Too!

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

Our guest today is the creator, host, and producer of the popular podcast History Rage: Paul Bavill. By day, Paul is a welfare officer for Leeds City Council, but he's also an avid reenactor, covering everything from Tudor England to the Second World War. His group - Foreign Field Living History - regularly appears at the Chalke Valley History Festival, Gloucester History Festival, Chelsea History Festival, among others, and is often seen at English Heritage sites across the UK. But his main contribution to historical discourse comes through his fabulous podcast, History Rage, where Paul lets historians and scholars rant about what they see as senseless, useless, and counterproductive history myths that just won't go away! Many of these involve military history - Bill even assigns several episodes in his World War II course. Through hard work and sheer will, Paul has built a substantial following of loyal listeners and has had on some prominent folks in the history community, including several Friends-of-the-Pod! Can't recommend it enough. It's fun to chat with a fellow podcaster; you'll quickly tell Paul's a generous part of the pod community. We'll talk Leeds and West Yorkshire, rugby, Tudor tents, favorite military history rages, Meat Loaf, body snatcher Joseph Naples, Avro Aviation, Alien, and a first for us - Henry Ball's Anti-Garroting Pistol! We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did recording it.Shoutout to the historic Scarborough Hotel Pub in Leeds!Rec.: 9/29/2026

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

Today's episode is a first - recorded from the historic Zodiac Lounge at Bruxelles Pub in Dublin, Ireland; it's Doug Delaney of the Royal Military College of Canada! While participating in the Empires and War Conference hosted by University College Dublin and the Royal Military College of Canada, we found time to sit down with Doug over a few pints of Guinness. A retired Lieutenant Colonel with over twenty-seven years' service in the Canadian Army, Doug has taught at the Royal Military College, where he earned his PhD, for almost as long. His military service includes deployments to Cyprus, Somalia, and Kosovo, and he's our first guest with a freefall parachutist rating. Doug's scholarship is impressive. He's written several books, including The Soldiers’ General: Bert Hoffmeister at War (UBC Press), Corps Commanders: Five British and Canadian Generals at War, 1939-1945 (UBC Press), and The Imperial Army Project: Britain and the Land Forces of the Dominions and India, 1902-1945 (Oxford University Press), and he co-edits (with Friend-of-the-Pod Aimée Fox) the McGill-Queen’s University Press series War and the British Empire.In addition to jumping out of helicopters, Doug has seen and done a lot both in uniform and as a teacher and historian. Enjoy this fun, honest chat, complete with legit Irish pub background noise! We'll talk flipping a coin, the value of history and the humanities for military officers, Bert Hoffmeister, A Bridge Too Far, the Rolling Stones, The Dubliners, and more - a lot about life in this one.Special thanks to Bruxelles Pub in Dublin for letting us record in the Zodiac Lounge!Rec.: 09/19/2026

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