OPINION

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BIO

Dr. Michael A. Palmer is a professor in the Department of History and the Program in Maritime Studies at East Carolina University. He joined the Department in August 1991 and was chair from August 1999 through July 2007. Since August 2007 he has been the interim chair of the Department of English. During academic years 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 he served as interim chair of the Department of Geography. Professor Palmer earned his Ph.D. from Temple University in 1981 where he studied under the late Russell F. Weigley.

Between 1983 and 1991, Professor Palmer worked at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, DC. He served as an assistant editor of the Center’s The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History series. In 1986 he transferred to the newly established Contemporary History Branch and produced that office’s first monograph—Origins of the Maritime Strategy: American Naval Strategy in the First Postwar Decade (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1988). In the summer of 1988 Professor Palmer worked as a field historian for the Center in the Persian Gulf, where he focused on the operations of Special Forces. In the fall of 1990 during Operation Desert Shield, Palmer worked in OP-603—the staff of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ (OPNAV) Strategic Concepts Group in the Pentagon.

Professor Palmer is the author of numerous books and articles. His published works include: The Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2006); Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005); Lee Moves North: Robert E. Lee on the Offensive, 1862-1863 (New York: John Wiley & Son, 1998); The War That Never Was (Arlington, VA: Vandamere Press, 1994; New York: Ibooks, 2003); Guardians of the Gulf: The Growth of American Involvement in the Persian Gulf, 1833-1992 (New York: The Free Press, 1992); On Course for Desert Storm: The U.S. Navy and the Persian Gulf (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1992); Arctic Strike: The Campaign on the Northern Flank (New York: Avon Books, 1991); Origins of the Maritime Strategy: The Development of American Naval Strategy, 1945-1955. 2nd ed. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990); Origins of the Maritime Strategy: American Naval Strategy in the First Postwar Decade (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1988); and Stoddert’s War: Naval Operations during the Quasi-War with France, 1798-1801 (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1987; Classics of Naval Literature, Naval Institute Press, 1999). He has contributed to a variety of journals and magazines including: the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, The American Neptune, The Mariner’s Mirror, Armed Forces Journal International, Air Power History, Military Review, Armed Forces & Society, The Journal of Military History, The International Journal of Maritime History, The North Carolina Historical Review, The American Historical Review, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, War in History, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, and the Naval War College Review.

Professor Palmer has received the Department of the Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service Medal, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature, from the Naval Order of the United States, and the Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History.

Professor Palmer resides in Greenville, North Carolina, with his wife. Potomac Books published his most recent historical work: The Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation. Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century, published in February 2005 by Harvard University Press (paperback 2007) is currently being translated for publication in Turkish and Spanish. He has also completed, and is seeking a publisher for American Eagle, a novel about an American flying for the German air service during the First World War.