Gary Sheffield (historian)

Gary Sheffield is an English academic at the University of Wolverhampton and a military historian.^[1] He has published widely, especially on the First World War, and contributes to many newspapers, journals and magazines.^[2] He frequently broadcasts on television and radio.^[2]

Sheffield was educated at Raynes Park High School before studying history at the University of Leeds (BA 1982, MA by research 1985) under Edward Spiers and Hugh Cecil.^[3] Following his MA, Sheffield became a lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1985, and studied at King's College, London under Brian Bond for a part-time PhD awarded in 1994.^[3] In 1999 he became a senior lecturer in the Defence Studies Department of King's College London and Land Warfare Historian on the Higher Command and Staff Course at the UK's Joint Services Command and Staff College.^[3]

In 2005 Sheffield was appointed Professor of Modern history at King's College London and the following year was appointed the inaugural Professor of War studies at the University of Birmingham.^[3] In 2013, Sheffield was appointed Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton.^[1] Since 2009, Prof Sheffield has been a Vice President of The Western Front Association. Sheffield is variously credited as Gary Sheffield, G. Sheffield and G. D. Sheffield.

In 2011 Sheffield published his second book on Field Marshal Douglas Haig, titled "The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army" (Aurum Press, 2011). The Daily Telegraph reviewer praised "Sheffield’s solid scholarship and admirable advocacy" yet added that "the nagging thought remains: what a terrible shame it was that Haig’s progress along his learning curve had to be greased by such deep floods of blood."^[4]

Sheffield is President of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides, and Vice-President of the Western Front Association.^[1] He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, Visiting Professor at the Humanities Research Institute of the University of Buckingham, member of the academic Advisory Panel of the National Army Museum, and a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Trust.^[1]

Publications

• Command and Morale: The British Army on the Western Front 1914-18 (Praetorian Press, 2014).
• Ed. with Peter W. Gray, Changing War (Continuum, 2013)
• The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army (Aurum Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1845136918).
• The War Studies Reader (Continuum, 2010)
• Imperial War Museum's 1914-1918 The Western Front Experience (Carlton Books, 2008)
• Ed., War on the Western Front: In the Trenches of World War I (Osprey, 2007)
• Ed. with J. Bourne, Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005; Phoenix, 2006)
• The Somme: A New History (Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2004)
• Forgotten Victory: The First World War - Myths and Realities (Headline, 2001; Review, 2002)
• 'Leadership in the Trenches: Officer-Man Relations, Morale and Discipline in the British Army in the era of the First World War (Macmillan, 2000)
• Ed., Leadership and Command: The Anglo-American Military Experience Since 1861 (Brassey's, 1996; New Edition, 2002)
• Ed. with D. Todman, Command and Control on the Western Front: The British Army's Experience, 1914-19 (Spellmount, 2004) ISBN 978-1-86227-083-1
• The Redcaps: History of the Royal Military Police and Its Antecedents from the Middle Ages to the Gulf War (Brassey's, 1994) ISBN 978-1-85753-029-2

Sources and references

External links

• Gary Sheffield - Military Historian
• BBC History Lions led by Donkeys? by Dr Gary Sheffield
• Q & A session on the Orion Books website
• Prof Gary Sheffield BA, MA, PhD Vice-President of The Western Front Association
• Interview with Prof Gary Sheffield, May 2014