Areas of study

My current area of study is Supply and Transport in the Soviet Army during the Soviet-German War 1941-5. This has a rich source of Russian material although very little is written in English and there is sparse coverage by English language authors. Given a widespread lack of knowledge, it is important to use a "Comparative History" approach and lay out German methods alongside the Soviet ones to compare and contrast them. The Soviet-German War faces numerous historiographic issues which have been highlighted by David Glantz. He has written extensively about the dangers of an over reliance on German archival sources and personal accounts. However since 1992 and particularly in the last ten years, the release of original material by the Russian Ministry of Defence has made this task easier and a new generation of Russia authors has written on a wide array of subjects. It is to be deplored that some Western authors continue to churn out operational books based solely on German sources without reference to the 'Other side of the hill'.

 Study Areas

• Soviet Army in the Russo-German War 1941-1945

• Prussian/German Army supply and transport 1745-1945

• British Army logistics 1715-1945

• Logistics of the C18th and C19th

• Civilian transport covering the same time periods

Career

Professional Career

Most of my career (around 25 years,) has been spent working in academic publishing on both the books and journals side, for a number of publishing houses concerned with history, international studies and military studies. These included the publishing houses:

• Frank Cass Publishing (particularly Soviet Military Studies and Holocaust Studies)

• Taylor and Francis

• Yale University Press

Academic Career

I attended the University of Wolverhampton’s MA course ‘Second World War: Conflict, Society and Holocaust’ in 2020-22 and gained a Distinction for my MA.

From Feb 2023 I have been working at the East Centre, University of East Anglia as Visiting Research Fellow with the aim of completing a PhD by Publication. This will be based on my works published in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies and other works. I hope to start writing the over-arching critical analysis (15,000 words) in January 2025, and for the next six months will actually be a paid up student at UEA.

In Spring 2024, I started teaching at the Univeristy of Wolverhampton as an Associate Visting Lecturer on the MA Second World War: ‘Conflict, Society and Holocaust’ delivering ‘The Ostfront and German occupation policy in Eastern Europe’ module and covering some dissertation supervision work on that subject. From January 2025 I shall be teaching the The Holocaust: Historiography, Sources and Controversies module on the same course.

I attend the following conferences where I give papers:

• BASEES

• Second World War Research Group

• British Commission for Military History

• British Commission for Military History Early Career Researchers Group

and I am one of three co-ordinators for the BCMH ECR Group responsible for mature students.