S2E8 JP Clark - US Army War College

07/26/22 • 76 min

As listed on his own webpage, Colonel JP Clark is “an army officer and historian.” He is a new instructor in the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations, at the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA, where he also served as Director of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute in 2018-2019. Prior to serving at the War College, Colonel Clark did two stints as a uniformed instructor in the Department of History at the US Military Academy at West Point. He completed a BS in Russian-German Language with a concentration in Systems Engineering. He later earned an MA and PhD in history from Duke University and also has a master's degree in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College.

JP started his military career as an armor officer and served in northern Iraq, but shifted to the Strategist MOS, in which he has severd for several years. Among other appointments, he did stints in the Immediate Office of the Secretary of the Army and the Army Transition Team for the Chief of Staff-designate, and was an exchange officer with the Initiatives Group of the British Army’s Chief of the General Staff. JP is the author of Preparing for War: The Emergence of the Modern U.S. Army, 1815-1917 (Harvard University Press, 2017) and Striking the Balance: U.S. Army Force Posture in Europe, 2028 (Strategic Studies Institute, 2020), which he co-wrote with C. Anthony Pfaff. JP has also authored numerous articles and essays in such publications as Parameters, Military Review, War Room, The Strategy Bridge, British Army Review, The Three Swords, War on the Rocks, Strategos, and Armor, and is a podcaster himself with the Army War College's excellent pod War Room.

JP is an experienced researcher, military educator, and soldier, and we’re going to try to get to all of it. And in case you are wondering - yep, Fury and Kelly's Heroes are go-to-war film choices! He's even bringing the kids up on Blackadder AND Monty Python. Enjoy our chat with JP Clark!

Rec.: 07/18/2022

Rec.: 07/18/2022

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S2E7 Debbie Gershenowitz - University of North Carolina Press

Debbie Gershenowitz is an executive editor at the University of North Carolina Press, where she both acquires and edits manuscripts. It is worth mentioning that Debbie works out of UNC's “northern office” in NYC. Debbie earned a BA in History from Clark University and an MA in the same discipline at Indiana University. Her historical interests are extensive, and include but are not limited to black history, borderlands, military history, women, gender, and sexualities, and Latinx history. She favors bottom-up histories that give voice to underrepresented people and institutions. Debbie oversees four series at Chapel Hill, including the New Cold War History series.

Before joining UNC press in 2019, Debbie spent more than seven years as Senior Acquisitions Editor for American and Latin American History at Cambridge University Press after serving Senior Editor in History & Law at NYU Press for ten years. She also served as an acquisitions editor for Palgrave MacMillan’s History list and was a reference editor for Scribner. Debbie started her career working in journals, first at the American Historical Review, then with Perspective Publishing in the UK.

If you are an academic, you have likely seen Debbie at one of the many conferences she attends each year, and she also provides a great service to our profession by frequently participating in publishing roundtables at conferences around the country. Debbie has played a tremendous role in shaping military history published by university presses, and we are excited to hear what she has to say about the academic press business. Pay close attention - Big 10 expansion, David Bowie, the Hartford Whalers, and Brooklyn hipsters sneak into the conversation!

Rec.: 07/11/2022

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S2E9 Randy Papadopoulos - US Navy Staff

Since June 2021, Dr. Sarandis (Randy) Papadopoulos is a Senior Strategy Analyst with the US Navy Staff. He previously served as the Secretariat Historian in the Department of the Navy since 2010 and was a historian with the Navy Heritage Command from 2000-2010. Randy is also an experienced teacher, having taught courses on a range of military history and international relations topics at George Washington University and the University of Maryland at College Park. He received his BA in History from the University of Toronto before earning an MA in Military and Naval History from the University of Alabama. Randy then received his PhD from George Washington University, working with Ronald Spector.

Randy is principal co-author with Alfred Goldberg, et al, of Pentagon 9/11 (Washington: USGPO, 2007), which is a must-read for anyone interested in the Sept. 11 attacks. Most recently, he co-edited Conceptualizing Maritime and Naval Strategy: Festschrift for Captain Peter M. Swartz, United States Navy (ret.) (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2020). He has also authored more than a dozen articles and essays on naval power and submarine warfare. Randy’s dedication to the discipline of military history is unsurpassed. He has served as Vice President & Trustee of the Society for Military History, and currently serves as the Society for Military History’s delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies. The Society for Military recognized Randy’s service to the organization in 2022 by awarding him the Edwin H. Simmons Award for service to the Society for Military History. He has also received the Department of the Navy Award for Distinguished and Superior Civilian Service, and the Navy Civilian Service Achievement Medal. Randy is also active in the US Commission on Military History and has held the offices of vice-president and president of that organization.

Randy has been the long-time organizer of the Military Classics Seminar in the DC area, which often meets at Ft. Myers. If you attend the Society for Military History annual conference, you'll see Randy, often!

So tune in - Randy has the inside take on official military history, "For All Mankind," and techno-pop, and shares his Greek-Canadian-US background, and learning German the hard way. Check it out!

Rec.: 07/20/2022