News

NEW EDITORS FROM 1ST APRIL 2024

The British Commission for Military History is delighted to announce that Dr Sam Edwards (Loughborough University) and Dr Andrew Sanders (De Montfort University) have been appointed as co-editors of the British Journal of Military History from 1st April 2024. They replace Professor Richard Grayson and Dr Erica Wald who have stepped down as editors after five years. The BCMH wishes to thank and congratulate Richard and Erica for their very successful time as editors of the BJMH. During their tenure the Journal has gone from strength to strength and they hand over a justifiably well-regarded publication to Sam and Andrew. We wish them every success in their future projects.

 

NEW MANAGING EDITORS (15th March 2022, updated 27th June 2022)

We are very pleased to welcome the following to our editorial team as Managing Editors:

Dr Jack Doyle (UK)

Dr Mario Draper (University of Kent, UK)

Dr Sam Edwards (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

Dr Nathan Finney (Duke University, USA)

Dr Howard Fuller (University of Wolverhampton, UK)

Vikki Hawkins (The British Museum, UK)

Dr Nina Janz (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)

Dr Raymond Kimball (42EdGames, USA)

Maria Ogborn (UK)

Dr Andrew Sanders (University of Derby, UK)

 

  

NEW BOOKS REVIEWS EDITOR (21st February 2022)

We are very pleased to welcome Dr Máire MacNeill as our new Book Reviews Editor.  She replaces Dr Rosie Kennedy who had held the role since the new editorial team took over in 2019 and we thank Rosie for all her work in the past three years.

 

EDITORS SOUGHT (11th January 2022)

The BJMH is seeking new members of our editorial team as follows:

• Book Reviews Editor(s): one or two editors who will liaise with publishers over new books, including arranging for titles of interest to be sent to reviewers, and then liaising with review authors over their reviews through to production stage.
• Managing Editors: up to five editors who will arrange for the review of submitted articles and then liaise with authors over the editorial process through to production stage.

We are keen to represent the diversity of research on military history and would particularly welcome applicants whose work would further broaden the expertise we have within our editorial team.  Applicants should either have a PhD or have produced other research of similar scholarly standing.

Please ask any questions, and apply by sending a CV (maximum two pages of A4) and a short statement (maximum 250 words) on which role interests you and why, by email to Prof. Richard Grayson (r.grayson@gold.ac.uk) by 1pm GMT on Friday 11th February 2022.

 

NEW MANAGING EDITOR (9th October 2020)

The BJMH is pleased to announce that Dr Rachel Chin has joined our team as a Managing Editor.

  

ADDITIONAL MANAGING EDITORS (4th March 2020)

The BJMH is pleased to announce that Dr William Butler and Dr Yu Suzuki have joined us as Managing Editors.

 

RESEARCH NOTES (2nd March 2020)

We are now accepting 'Research Notes' of between 1,000 and 3,000 words.  These could be, for example: analysis of the significance a newly accessible document or documents; a reinterpretation of a document; or, a discussion of an historical controversy drawing on new research.  Note that all such pieces of work should follow the style guidelines for articles and will be peer reviewed.  Note also that such pieces should not be letters, nor should they be opinion pieces which are not based on new research.

 

ISSUE 5.2 PUBLISHED 24TH OCTOBER 2019

Issue 5.2 of the BJMH, a special issue on Transforming War, 1914-1918 (commissioned by the previous editorial team led by Dr Matthew Ford and edited by Prof William Philpott) was published on 24th October 2019 and is available here.

  

ISSUE 5.1 PUBLISHED 22ND JULY 2019

Issue 5.1 of the BJMH was published on 22nd July 2019 and is available here.

  

NEXT ISSUE OUT W/C 22ND JULY 2019

The next issue of the BJMH will be published in the week commencing 22nd July 2019.  We are pleased to say that all articles and reviews will now have a Digital Object Identfier to allow easy linking (see here for details of DOIs).  In the days leading up to our publication, news of the contents will be publicised via Twitter.  Find the journal's account here.

 

EXPANDED EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD ANNOUNCED

17th June 2019 (updated 20th June 2019)

The Co-editors of the British Journal for Military History are pleased to announce a new Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) for the journal.  The previous EAB consisted of twenty-six members, all based in the UK and predominantly (though far from exclusively) specialists in nineteenth and twentieth century history.  Those involved were all very significant figures, carrying out exciting work in the field and we are delighted that so many of them have agreed to continue on the new EAB. 

However, we wanted to broaden the chronological scope of the Board and the types of subjects covered, and we wanted to internationalise the Board.  We also noted that only five of the twenty-six EAB members (19%) were women.  We were concerned about that as we felt it did not reflect the balance of those involved in military history research today, especially in newer and/or more broadly defined aspects of the discipline.  There is a risk that the BJMH would miss an opportunity to create new networks in the discipline.  At worst, such an imbalance risks perpetuating views of military history among non-specialists which are inaccurate and do not serve the discipline well in wider academia.

Consequently, we have massively expanded our Board so that it now includes 78 people, all significant figures in a broad definition of military history and the subject areas with which it should interact.  We now have experts based beyond the UK in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, and the USA.  Our chronological scope now has much broader coverage of medieval and early modern history, and the geographic spread of expertise is broader, especially as regards non-European countries.  The subjects covered are much wider, with the addition of experts working on, for example, cultural aspects of military history and areas such as commemoration, gender, colonialism and race.  We are pleased to have made further direct connections with those who work directly with militaries on studying military history.  This was already strongly established for the UK, but we have now made links with the US Army War College, US Air Force School for Advanced Air and Space Studies, the Bundeswehr’s Centre for Military History and Social Sciences, and the United Service Institution of India.  Many new EAB members would not define themselves primarily (or in some cases at all) as military historians, but work in adjacent fields often on themes of conflict, politics and society with which military history can and should engage closely.  Note also that slightly more than half of the EAB members now are women.

In time, we hope that this new EAB will have a significant influence on the work of the BJMH and the wider Commission, and we look forward to seeing a range of exciting new subjects come before us for peer review.

The full list of the new EAB is:

Chair: Prof Alexander Watson (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)

Dr Laura Aguiar (Public Record Office of Northern Ireland / Nerve Centre, UK)

Dr Andrew Ayton (Keele University, UK)

Prof Tarak Barkawi (London School of Economics, UK)

Prof Ian Beckett (University of Kent, UK)

Dr Huw Bennett (University of Cardiff, UK)

Prof Martyn Bennett (Nottingham Trent University, UK)

Dr Matthew Bennett (University of Winchester, UK)

Dr Philip W. Blood (Member, BCMH, UK)

Prof Brian Bond (King’s College London, UK)

Dr Timothy Bowman (University of Kent, UK; Member BCMH, UK)

Ian Brewer (Treasurer, BCMH, UK)

Dr Ambrogio Caiani (University of Kent, UK)

Prof Antoine Capet (University of Rouen, France)

Dr Erica Charters (University of Oxford, UK)

Sqn Ldr (Ret) Rana TS Chhina (United Service Institution of India, India)

Dr Gemma Clark (University of Exeter, UK)

Dr Marie Coleman (Queens University Belfast, UK)

Prof Mark Connelly (University of Kent, UK)

Seb Cox (Air Historical Branch, UK)

Dr Selena Daly (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

Dr Susan Edgington (Queen Mary University of London, UK)

Prof Catharine Edwards (Birkbeck, University of London, UK)

Prof Alison Fell (University of Leeds, UK)

Jonathan Ferguson (Royal Armouries, UK)

Dr Jane Finucane (University of South Wales, UK)

Dr Matthew Ford (Founding Editor of BJMH; University of Sussex, UK)

Dr Isla Forsyth (University of Nottingham, UK)

Dr Aimée Fox (King's College London, UK)

Prof Yvonne Friedman (Bar-Ilan University, Israel)

Dr Niamh Gallagher (University of Cambridge, UK)

Dr Stefan Goebel (University of Kent, UK)

Dr Christina Goulter (JSCSC; King’s College London, UK)

Andy Grainger (Secretary-General, BCMH, UK)

Dr Allen C. Guelzo (Princeton University, USA)

Dr Meleah Hampton (Australian War Memorial, Australia)

Dr Emma Hanna (University of Kent, UK)

Dr Rebecca Herman (University of California Berkeley, USA)

Prof Carole Hillenbrand (St Andrews University, UK)

Prof Matthew Hughes (Brunel University, UK)

Alan Jeffreys (Imperial War Museum, London, UK)

Prof Heather Jones (University College London, UK)

Lt Gen (Ret) Sir John Kiszely (Changing Character of War Centre, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, UK)

Dr Sylvie Kleinman (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

Dr Halik Kochanski (Independent Scholar & Member, BCMH, UK)

Dr Ariel Mae Lambe (University of Connecticut, USA)

Dr Elisabeth Leake (University of Leeds, UK)

Dr Elli Lemonidou (University of Patras, Greece)

Dr Peter Lieb (Centre for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr, Germany)

Prof Charlotte MacDonald (Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand)

Dr Jenny Macleod (University of Hull, UK)

Dr Jessica Meyer (University of Leeds, UK)

Dr Alisa Miller (King's College London, UK)

Prof Rana Mitter (University of Oxford, UK)

Dr Michelle R. Moyd (Indiana University Bloomington, USA)

Dr Richard R. Muller (US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, USA)

Dr Oonagh Murphy (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)

Prof Michael S. Neiberg (US Army War College, USA)

Dr Emma Newlands (University of Strathclyde, UK)

Prof Helen Nicholson (Cardiff University, UK)

Prof Jane Ohlmeyer (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

Dr Eleanor O'Keeffe (Historic Royal Palaces, UK)

Dr Declan O’Reilly (University of East Anglia, UK)

Prof Douglas Peers (University of Waterloo, Canada)

Prof William Philpott (King's College London; President, BCMH, UK)

Stephen Prince (Naval Historical Branch, UK)

Prof Andrew Roberts (King’s College London, UK)

Prof Guy Rowlands (University of St Andrews, UK; Member, BCMH, UK)

Dr Laury Sarti (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany)

Dr Lynsey Shaw Cobden (Air Historical Branch, UK)

Prof Gary Sheffield (University of Wolverhampton, UK)

Dr Claudia Siebrecht (University of Sussex, UK)

Dr Andy Simpson (Member, BCMH, UK)

Prof Natalia Sobrevilla Perea (University of Kent, UK)

Dr Beth C Spacey (University of Queensland, Australia)

Prof Sir Hew Strachan (University of St Andrews, UK)

Dr Andrekos Varnava (Flinders University, Australia)

Dr Jennifer Wellington (University College Dublin, Ireland)

 

NOTICE FROM THE GENERAL COMMITTEE OF THE BCMH

8th February 2019

I am delighted to be able to inform members that the BJMH has a new editorial team.

In the December issue of Mars & Clio I reported that our Founding Editor, Dr Matthew Ford, had stepped down following the publication of Vol 4 Issue 3 in September. At the AGM last year (and at previous AGMs) there was widespread appreciation of Matthew’s work in launching the Journal and building such powerful support for it in a very short time. On behalf of the Committee and the membership I would like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to Matthew’s achievement.

We are now in the process of moving the Journal from the platform which Matthew had created to one that is accessed as part of the BCMH site. The new editorial team is led from Goldsmiths, University of London by Professor Richard Grayson and Dr Erica Wald.

- Andy Grainger, BCMH Secretary General

 

NOTICE FROM FOUNDING & OUTGOING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, DR MATTHEW FORD

8th February 2019

Following the BCMH AGM in February 2018, the BJMH entered a hiatus. Over the next several weeks I am very pleased that the journal will recommence operations under the editorship of a new team at Goldsmiths.

I established the journal in 2014 with the aim of bringing good quality military history to audiences beyond academia. I was very grateful for the early endorsement of Sir Michael Howard who summed up the direction of the journal when he wrote,

“Military history is too important to be left to the military historians.”

With the support of a brilliant editorial team (Catherine Baker, Jennifer Daley, Stuart Mitchell, Aimée Fox, Christopher Phillips, Kenton White, Sarah Westbury, Tom Pert, Alasdair Urquhart and George Wilton) the journal grew from nothing to around 7000 readers. We put out four volumes and peer-reviewed around 170 articles. Now that I am about to hand over to a new team, I would like to think we did a pretty good job at realising the journal's objectives. It is great that two of the team (Alasdair and George) will continue the good work that we started.

The BJMH occupies a highly contested scholarly space that at its heart involves re-shaping the academic and public perspective of military history. I passionately believe that military history has an important role to play in helping to promote the public understanding of war in society and so I am very pleased that such a fab bunch of historians at Goldsmiths will be taking over from me.

I wish the Journal, the new editorial team and the BCMH every success in the future.

DR MATTHEW FORD, FOUNDING EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

If you want to continue the conversation with me then ping me a tweet at @warmatters