War has been a central feature of human history and requires study by historians from many different vantage points. Come the twenty-first century the history of strategy, military affairs and institutions has been enriched by new perspectives from economic history, cultural history, histories of gender, race, emotions, and class, global and international history, environmental history, and histories of science and technology. The Sir Michael Howard Centre recognizes that are all vital components of study if we are to obtain a fuller picture of the profound impact of war on the history of the development of human societies.
In the 1960s the distinguished historian Sir Michael Howard had a vision for a new kind of history of war; it would be studied in all its complexity and seek also to examine how the history of war affected history in general. In keeping with the pioneering legacy of its namesake, the Sir Michael Howard Centre promotes the scholarly history of war in all its dimensions, trains research students, hosts research projects and conferences and supports post-doctoral and visiting fellows. We study the history of war from the ancient world to the recent past and explore all of its myriad dimensions, warfare on land at sea and in the air, through the economic and social transformations wrought by war, to the personal and intimate lived experiences of those who fought in or were affected by wars, and the memory and consequences of conflict .
The contemporary policy relevance of historical sources, methods, and expertise is also reflected across the social sciences, in law and in other disciplines. The Centre foregrounds this applied dimension in its attention to the practicalities of documenting war as well as the analytical challenges of understanding it.
The Centre builds on existing strengths such as the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, the Hobson Library and Archive at the UK Defence Academy and a number of successful research sub-groups, such as the Second World War Research Group. At its heart is a vibrant and inclusive community of nationally and internationally recognised senior and junior scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. Altogether, we provide authoritative expertise in the history of war and its related fields based in the Departments of War Studies, Defence Studies, History and beyond.
People
Professor of Military History
Professor of Strategic Studies
Professor in History and Foreign Policy
Emeritus Professor of Australian Studies
Senior Lecturer
Associate Dean (Professional & Online Education) SSPP
Projects
War and State Research Network
The War and the State Research Network (WSRN) seeks to provide a new understanding of the relationship between war and the liberal democratic state. This project was recently selected for a Global Strategic Collaboration Award by Cornell University. Since August 2022, Global Cornell awarded more than $440,000 to 88 Cornell-Hub faculty teams to support emerging research and teaching collaborations, with matching funds from 11 Global Hubs partner universities and contributions from Weill Cornell Medicine.
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) Studentship – Training the Troops: British and Commonwealth Armies, 1939-1945
Undertaken by: Megan Hamilton Supervised by: Professors Jonathan Fennell, Niall Barr (KCL) & Mr. Simon Offord (IWM) Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Imperial War Museums, this four-year doctoral project examines how the British and Commonwealth Armies prepared and trained to fight a global war. It aims to understand how doctrine and training methods were developed, disseminated, and synchronised across this multi-national force. It is a transnational history that uses archives across five continents and seven countries.
SMHC Forces Record Project
The Sir Michael Howard Centre FRP is funded by a grant from the National Army Museum (NAM) and is partnered with King’s Digital Lab. Working with stakeholders at NAM, the National Archives, the Ministry of Defence and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the eight-month project will make use of a sample of personnel records from the Second World War to conduct a proof of concept for a wider study exploring the social processes of fighting a ‘people’s war’.
Forthcoming and In-Progress Projects
Dr Jonathan Fennell and Prof Joe Maiolo have been awarded funding to launch the General Anders Research Fellowship in Anglo-Polish History, a three-year postdoctoral fellowship within the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War. Ashley Jackson and Jean Smith collaborate on a Leverhulme Trust funded project, ‘Empire in Motion: Conflict and Co-Operation during the Second World War’. Helen McCartney works on an AHRC funded project, ‘Our Place in the First World War’; and Lara Feigel is involved with an ERC funded project, 'Beyond enemy lines literature and film in the British and American zones of occupied Germany, 1945-1949'.
Previous Projects & Events
- Re-assessing the Franco-Prussian War - 150 years on
- Sir Michael Howard Memorial Service
- Mobilising resources for war, KCL/All Souls Conference - Dec 2019
- NATO @ 70, Past and Present conference - Dec 2019
- Armageddon: The Second World War in Comparative Perspective - June 2019
- Early Cold War: New Perspectives - Nov 18
- Applied History The British Army and the Study of War - Jun 2018
- The Peoples' Wars? - The Second World War In Socio-Political Perspective - Jun 2018
Additional Projects
Publications
-
The Second 'Great Game': Britain and the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan, 1979 - 1980
-
How the allies won the war in 1918: Strategic alignment or complete u-turn?
Members of the Centre have written prize winning and best selling books.
- Richard Vinen’s National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945-1963 (Allen Lane, 2014) won the 2015 Wolfson Prize for History
- Andrew Stewart’s First Victory: The Second World War and the East Africa Campaign (Yale University Press, 2016) was runner up for the Templer Medal Book Prize.
- Nick Lloyd’s Passchendaele: A New History (Penguin, 2017) was on the Sunday Times UK bestseller list.
Activities
The SMHC organises and co-hosts a range of events and seminars
History of War Seminar
The Military History seminar considers wars and warfare in the modern era, since the 1780s. Papers address the themes of the history of armed forces (land, naval and air); strategy and operations; military theory and practice; commanders and campaigns; and the social and cultural impact of warfare. The Seminar is a collaboration between the IHR and the Sir Michael Howard Centre of the History of War, King’s College London. Sir Michael Howard founded the seminar over sixty years ago.
King's TCSG Event Series
The Trauma-Centred Study Group brings together PGRs, ECRs, and faculty from across King's College London as well as other London-based universities to explore trauma both as a tool of analysis within our research and as a tool of self-reflection. The TCSG facilitates routine dialogue through discussion-based sessions, workshops, and public lectures and offers a creative space for collaboration and innovative thinking among researchers about the visibility of trauma as a concept, methodology, and informed practice within our research, curricula, and policy-making spheres.
King's Maritime History Seminar
The King’s Maritime History Seminar is hosted by the Laughton Naval Unit and the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. It is organised by the British Commission for Maritime History in association with the Society for Nautical Research and with the support of Lloyds Register. For further information contact Dr Alan James, War Studies, KCL, WC2R 2LS alan.2.james@kcl.ac.uk
Sir Michael Howard Annual Lecture
Each year, the SMHC hosts a leading scholar on the history of war for an annual lecture.
- 2023 Annual Lecture: Treaties in danger contemporary crises of international order in historical perspective
- 2022 Annual Lecture: The French Resistance in World War II through the history of emotions with Guillaume Piketty
- 2021 Annual Lecture: The metrics of war: Excess mortality and the politics of counting
- SMHC Annual Lecture 2020: Sir Michael Howard and Clausewitz
- 2019 Annual Lecture: Treaties in danger contemporary crises of international order in historical perspective
- SMHC Annual Lecture - Dec 2018
Conferences
The SMHC organises national and international conferences that feature a wide range of scholarship. NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF WAR A Joint Conference Organised by the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War (King’s College London) and the University of Oxford taking place in-person at King’s College London on 28 June 2024. This conference brings together postgraduate research students working at King’s College London and the University of Oxford to provide a forum for exchanging ideas and fostering new connections between the two institutions. The conference showcases current research on war and armed conflict in all its breadth and will, therefore, accept submissions from DPhil/PhD researchers from either institution working on any field or period. WOMEN & WAR CONFERENCE This conference brings together two dynamic research fields that have recently discovered more common ground: the History of War and Gender History. The conference discusses new understandings and perspectives about women at and in war, and explores the multiple, complex, and sometimes conflicting roles women played in armed conflict: as soldiers, war leaders, humanitarian workers, civilians, perpetrators, victims, and survivors.
News
“Warsaw Calling": New exhibition pays tribute to courage and resilience of Polish resistance in WWII
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the exhibition will be hosted from 20 July to 8 August in Bush House, King’s College London,...
Events
Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War Annual Lecture 2024 - Decolonization Across Empires: Political Economy and the Violence Continuum
Discover how violence shaped the complex and often hidden dynamics of decolonization in this year's Sir Michael Howard Annual Lecture, as Professor Martin...
Please note: this event has passed.
Warsaw Rising 1944! Panel - Reflections on History, Significance and Memory on the 80th Anniversary
The panel will discuss the course of the Warsaw uprising in 1944, personal experiences, BBC broadcasts and how it is remembered.
Please note: this event has passed.
'Warsaw Calling: Uprising 1944' Exhibition
Join this exhibition exploring the Warsaw Uprising story through personal stories and historical artifacts.
Please note: this event has passed.
Rewriting Women into Maritime History: visibilising diverse histories and futures, 1700-2023
Seminar on Women into Maritime History.
Please note: this event has passed.
Interplay of Empires: The Quest for Influence in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean
Seminar on the Interplay of Empires.
Please note: this event has passed.
Affiliated Research Groups
Trauma-Centred Study Group
The Trauma-Centred Study Group brings together PGRs, ECRs, and faculty from across King's College London as well as other London-based universities to explore trauma both as a tool of analysis within our research and as a tool of self-reflection. The TCSG facilitates routine dialogue through discussion-based sessions, workshops, and public lectures and offers a creative space for collaboration and innovative thinking among researchers about the visibility of trauma as a concept, methodology, and informed practice within our research, curricula, and policy-making spheres.
Conflict Records Unit
The Conflict Records Unit will promote the development, use and understanding of conflict records. To contact the SMH Conflict Records Unit email cru@kcl.ac.uk
First World War Research Group
The First World War Research Group brings together a wealth of expertise on military, diplomatic, social, and cultural aspects of the conflict.
Occupation Studies Research Network
The Occupation Studies Research Network promotes the exchange of ideas and sharing of information among the international community of scholars actively researching military occupation as a form of alien rule and as a dynamic power relationship between occupiers and occupied. The joint convenors of the Network are Dr Christopher Knowles, Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and Dr Camilo Erlichman, Assistant Professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Laughton Naval Unit
The Laughton Unit educates and researches in the field of naval history and maritime strategy to support and shape the evolution of naval history as a tool across a broad spectrum of disciplines and debates in the world around us.
Second World War Research Group
The Second World War Research Group aims to promote innovative research on the conflict and its global aspects and act as a forum for bringing together new perspectives as well as encouraging collaboration across the scholarly community through conferences, seminars and other events.
People
Professor of Military History
Professor of Strategic Studies
Professor in History and Foreign Policy
Emeritus Professor of Australian Studies
Senior Lecturer
Associate Dean (Professional & Online Education) SSPP
Projects
War and State Research Network
The War and the State Research Network (WSRN) seeks to provide a new understanding of the relationship between war and the liberal democratic state. This project was recently selected for a Global Strategic Collaboration Award by Cornell University. Since August 2022, Global Cornell awarded more than $440,000 to 88 Cornell-Hub faculty teams to support emerging research and teaching collaborations, with matching funds from 11 Global Hubs partner universities and contributions from Weill Cornell Medicine.
AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) Studentship – Training the Troops: British and Commonwealth Armies, 1939-1945
Undertaken by: Megan Hamilton Supervised by: Professors Jonathan Fennell, Niall Barr (KCL) & Mr. Simon Offord (IWM) Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Imperial War Museums, this four-year doctoral project examines how the British and Commonwealth Armies prepared and trained to fight a global war. It aims to understand how doctrine and training methods were developed, disseminated, and synchronised across this multi-national force. It is a transnational history that uses archives across five continents and seven countries.
SMHC Forces Record Project
The Sir Michael Howard Centre FRP is funded by a grant from the National Army Museum (NAM) and is partnered with King’s Digital Lab. Working with stakeholders at NAM, the National Archives, the Ministry of Defence and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the eight-month project will make use of a sample of personnel records from the Second World War to conduct a proof of concept for a wider study exploring the social processes of fighting a ‘people’s war’.
Forthcoming and In-Progress Projects
Dr Jonathan Fennell and Prof Joe Maiolo have been awarded funding to launch the General Anders Research Fellowship in Anglo-Polish History, a three-year postdoctoral fellowship within the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War. Ashley Jackson and Jean Smith collaborate on a Leverhulme Trust funded project, ‘Empire in Motion: Conflict and Co-Operation during the Second World War’. Helen McCartney works on an AHRC funded project, ‘Our Place in the First World War’; and Lara Feigel is involved with an ERC funded project, 'Beyond enemy lines literature and film in the British and American zones of occupied Germany, 1945-1949'.
Previous Projects & Events
- Re-assessing the Franco-Prussian War - 150 years on
- Sir Michael Howard Memorial Service
- Mobilising resources for war, KCL/All Souls Conference - Dec 2019
- NATO @ 70, Past and Present conference - Dec 2019
- Armageddon: The Second World War in Comparative Perspective - June 2019
- Early Cold War: New Perspectives - Nov 18
- Applied History The British Army and the Study of War - Jun 2018
- The Peoples' Wars? - The Second World War In Socio-Political Perspective - Jun 2018
Additional Projects
Publications
-
The Second 'Great Game': Britain and the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan, 1979 - 1980
-
How the allies won the war in 1918: Strategic alignment or complete u-turn?
Members of the Centre have written prize winning and best selling books.
- Richard Vinen’s National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945-1963 (Allen Lane, 2014) won the 2015 Wolfson Prize for History
- Andrew Stewart’s First Victory: The Second World War and the East Africa Campaign (Yale University Press, 2016) was runner up for the Templer Medal Book Prize.
- Nick Lloyd’s Passchendaele: A New History (Penguin, 2017) was on the Sunday Times UK bestseller list.
Activities
The SMHC organises and co-hosts a range of events and seminars
History of War Seminar
The Military History seminar considers wars and warfare in the modern era, since the 1780s. Papers address the themes of the history of armed forces (land, naval and air); strategy and operations; military theory and practice; commanders and campaigns; and the social and cultural impact of warfare. The Seminar is a collaboration between the IHR and the Sir Michael Howard Centre of the History of War, King’s College London. Sir Michael Howard founded the seminar over sixty years ago.
King's TCSG Event Series
The Trauma-Centred Study Group brings together PGRs, ECRs, and faculty from across King's College London as well as other London-based universities to explore trauma both as a tool of analysis within our research and as a tool of self-reflection. The TCSG facilitates routine dialogue through discussion-based sessions, workshops, and public lectures and offers a creative space for collaboration and innovative thinking among researchers about the visibility of trauma as a concept, methodology, and informed practice within our research, curricula, and policy-making spheres.
King's Maritime History Seminar
The King’s Maritime History Seminar is hosted by the Laughton Naval Unit and the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. It is organised by the British Commission for Maritime History in association with the Society for Nautical Research and with the support of Lloyds Register. For further information contact Dr Alan James, War Studies, KCL, WC2R 2LS alan.2.james@kcl.ac.uk
Sir Michael Howard Annual Lecture
Each year, the SMHC hosts a leading scholar on the history of war for an annual lecture.
- 2023 Annual Lecture: Treaties in danger contemporary crises of international order in historical perspective
- 2022 Annual Lecture: The French Resistance in World War II through the history of emotions with Guillaume Piketty
- 2021 Annual Lecture: The metrics of war: Excess mortality and the politics of counting
- SMHC Annual Lecture 2020: Sir Michael Howard and Clausewitz
- 2019 Annual Lecture: Treaties in danger contemporary crises of international order in historical perspective
- SMHC Annual Lecture - Dec 2018
Conferences
The SMHC organises national and international conferences that feature a wide range of scholarship. NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF WAR A Joint Conference Organised by the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War (King’s College London) and the University of Oxford taking place in-person at King’s College London on 28 June 2024. This conference brings together postgraduate research students working at King’s College London and the University of Oxford to provide a forum for exchanging ideas and fostering new connections between the two institutions. The conference showcases current research on war and armed conflict in all its breadth and will, therefore, accept submissions from DPhil/PhD researchers from either institution working on any field or period. WOMEN & WAR CONFERENCE This conference brings together two dynamic research fields that have recently discovered more common ground: the History of War and Gender History. The conference discusses new understandings and perspectives about women at and in war, and explores the multiple, complex, and sometimes conflicting roles women played in armed conflict: as soldiers, war leaders, humanitarian workers, civilians, perpetrators, victims, and survivors.
News
“Warsaw Calling": New exhibition pays tribute to courage and resilience of Polish resistance in WWII
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the exhibition will be hosted from 20 July to 8 August in Bush House, King’s College London,...
Events
Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War Annual Lecture 2024 - Decolonization Across Empires: Political Economy and the Violence Continuum
Discover how violence shaped the complex and often hidden dynamics of decolonization in this year's Sir Michael Howard Annual Lecture, as Professor Martin...
Please note: this event has passed.
Warsaw Rising 1944! Panel - Reflections on History, Significance and Memory on the 80th Anniversary
The panel will discuss the course of the Warsaw uprising in 1944, personal experiences, BBC broadcasts and how it is remembered.
Please note: this event has passed.
'Warsaw Calling: Uprising 1944' Exhibition
Join this exhibition exploring the Warsaw Uprising story through personal stories and historical artifacts.
Please note: this event has passed.
Rewriting Women into Maritime History: visibilising diverse histories and futures, 1700-2023
Seminar on Women into Maritime History.
Please note: this event has passed.
Interplay of Empires: The Quest for Influence in the Nineteenth-Century Mediterranean
Seminar on the Interplay of Empires.
Please note: this event has passed.
Affiliated Research Groups
Trauma-Centred Study Group
The Trauma-Centred Study Group brings together PGRs, ECRs, and faculty from across King's College London as well as other London-based universities to explore trauma both as a tool of analysis within our research and as a tool of self-reflection. The TCSG facilitates routine dialogue through discussion-based sessions, workshops, and public lectures and offers a creative space for collaboration and innovative thinking among researchers about the visibility of trauma as a concept, methodology, and informed practice within our research, curricula, and policy-making spheres.
Conflict Records Unit
The Conflict Records Unit will promote the development, use and understanding of conflict records. To contact the SMH Conflict Records Unit email cru@kcl.ac.uk
First World War Research Group
The First World War Research Group brings together a wealth of expertise on military, diplomatic, social, and cultural aspects of the conflict.
Occupation Studies Research Network
The Occupation Studies Research Network promotes the exchange of ideas and sharing of information among the international community of scholars actively researching military occupation as a form of alien rule and as a dynamic power relationship between occupiers and occupied. The joint convenors of the Network are Dr Christopher Knowles, Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and Dr Camilo Erlichman, Assistant Professor at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
Laughton Naval Unit
The Laughton Unit educates and researches in the field of naval history and maritime strategy to support and shape the evolution of naval history as a tool across a broad spectrum of disciplines and debates in the world around us.
Second World War Research Group
The Second World War Research Group aims to promote innovative research on the conflict and its global aspects and act as a forum for bringing together new perspectives as well as encouraging collaboration across the scholarly community through conferences, seminars and other events.
Group leads
Reader in Military History and Air Power
Professor of the History of War and Society
Senior Lecturer in Imperial and Global History
Professor of the History of Warfare
Contact us
PGR Lead
Megan Hamilton, PhD Candidate, Department of Defence Studies
Communications Coordinator
Jessi Gilchrist, PhD Candidate, Department of War Studies | Doctoral Fellow, Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy