 Geoffrey Till in 2014 | |
| Born | 14 January 1945 |
| Academic work | |
| Main interests | Maritime history Military historian (History of warfare) |
Geoffrey Till OBE FKC (born in London, England, on 14 January 1945) is a British naval historian and emeritus Professor of Maritime Studies in the Defence Studies Department of King's College London. He is the Director of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies.
The son of Arthur Till, a Royal Air Force officer, and Violet Till, Geoffrey Till studied at King's College London, where he received his B.A. in 1966. Then, he went on to complete his MA in 1968 and PhD in 1976 within the Department of War Studies, King's College London. [1]
His first academic appointments were at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and the Department of Systems Science at the City University, London. In 1983, he was appointed visiting lecturer at King's College London and in 1989, he was appointed professor of history at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, also teaching at the Open University. On a NATO Defence Fellowship, he was a visiting scholar at the United States Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. In 1989, Till held the Foundation Chair in Military Affairs at the United States Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. [2]
With the closure of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, Till moved to the Joint Services Command and Staff College, where he served as the Dean of Academic Studies, a position he held concurrently with his King's College London chair and headship of the Department of the Defence Studies Department, until September 2006, when he received a Fellowship of King's College London. [2]
He has also been Visiting Professor at the Armed Forces University, Taiwan and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore. He is also a Member of Council of the Royal United Services Institute. [2] In 2018, the U.S. Naval War College appointed him Dudley W. Knox Distinguished Visiting Professor of Naval History and Maritime Strategy in the College's Hattendorf Historical Center. [3]
He has written extensively on maritime history and strategy. Till has been Reviews Editor for the Journal of Strategic Studies since it was launched in 1978, General Editor of Brassey’s Seapower: Naval Vessels, Weapons Systems and Technology series since 1987, contributing its first volume on modern sea power, and general series editor of the Frank Cass series on naval policy and history. He sits on the executive committee of the University of Haifa's Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center. [4]
In 2018, The U.S. Naval War College selected Till as the 2018 Hattendorf Prize Laureate. [5]
Till was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to defence. [6]
John Brewster Hattendorf, D.Phil., D.Litt., L.H.D., FRHistS, FSNR, is an American naval historian. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than fifty books, mainly on British and American maritime history and naval warfare. In 2005, the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings described him as "one of the most widely known and well-respected naval historians in the world." In reference to his work on the history of naval strategy, an academic in Britain termed him the "doyen of US naval educators." A Dutch scholar went further to say that Hattendorf "may rightly be called one of the most influential maritime historians in the world." From 1984 to 2016, he was the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the United States Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He has called maritime history "a subject that touches on both the greatest moments of the human spirit as well as on the worst, including war." In 2011, the Naval War College announced the establishment of the Hattendorf Prize for Distinguished Original Research in Maritime History, named for him. The 2014 Oxford Naval Conference - "Strategy and the Sea" - celebrated his distinguished career on April 10–12, 2014. The proceedings of the conference were published as a festschrift. In March 2016, Hattendorf received the higher doctorate of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) from the University of Oxford. Among the few Americans to have received such designation, Hattendorf remained actively engaged on the Naval War College campus after his formal retirement in 2016.
Sir Julian Stafford Corbett was a prominent British naval historian and geostrategist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose works helped shape the Royal Navy's reforms of that era. One of his most famous works is Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, which remains a classic among students of naval warfare. Corbett was a good friend and ally of naval reformer Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher, the First Sea Lord. He was chosen to write the official history of British Naval operations during World War I.
A blue-water navy is a maritime force capable of operating globally, essentially across the deep waters of open oceans. While definitions of what actually constitutes such a force vary, there is a requirement for the ability to exercise sea control at long range.
Sir Michael Eliot Howard was an English military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War, Honorary Fellow of All Souls College, Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, and founder of the Department of War Studies, King's College London. In 1958, he co-founded the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Andrew Lambert is a British naval historian, who since 2001 has been the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King's College London.
Norman Henry Gibbs was Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford University for 24 years from 1953 to 1977, the longest tenure of all who have held the chair since its establishment in 1909.
Donald Mackenzie Schurman was a Canadian naval historian. He was professor of history at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, and also served at the Royal Military College of Canada. In the Festschrift published in his honor in 1997, the editors hailed Schurman as the "founder of the serious study of naval history in Canada".
Rear Admiral James Vincent Purcell Goldrick, was an Australian naval historian, analyst of contemporary naval and maritime affairs, and a senior officer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Following his retirement from the RAN, Goldrick was a fellow at the Sea Power Centre – Australia and an adjunct professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences in the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. He was also a member of the Naval Studies Group at the Australian Centre for the Study of Armed Conflict and Society, an adjunct professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University and a professorial fellow of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at the University of Wollongong. He was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford in the first half of 2015, and a non-resident Fellow of the Lowy Institute from 2013 to 2018.
Bryan Ranft was an historian of the Royal Navy, who served as Professor of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, 1967–1977.
Colin S. Gray was a British-American writer on geopolitics and professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, where he was the director of the Centre for Strategic Studies. In addition, he was a Senior Associate to the National Institute for Public Policy.
Eric Grove was a British naval historian and defence analyst.
Catherine Zara Raymond is an international maritime security expert. She is an Associate at the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, based at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom.
Beatrice Heuser, is an historian and political scientist. She holds the chair of International Relations at the University of Glasgow.
The International Seapower Symposium (ISS) is a biennial meeting of the world's chiefs of navy that has met at the United States Naval War College since 1969. The proceedings of these symposia have been published on the Internet since ISS XVI in 2003.
Dr. W. Lawrence S. Prabhakar, M.A, Ph.D. is an associate professor of Strategic Studies and International Relations in the department of Political Science at Madras Christian College, India and Adjunct Research Fellow, S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
The Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies is a policy think-tank which conducts research and teaching on issues related to maritime security.
The Hattendorf Prize for Distinguished Original Research in Maritime History is awarded by the United States Naval War College for distinguished academic achievement in publishing original research that contributes to a deeper historical understanding of the broad context and interrelationships involved in the roles, contributions, limitations, and uses of the sea services in history. The prize is awarded approximately every two years and consists of a $10,000 cash prize, a specially designed bronze medal, and a citation. The Prize Laureate is expected to deliver a lecture at the United States Naval War College on the occasion of the award.
Vice Admiral Peter David Jones, is a retired senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), who served as the Chief Capability Development Group (CCDG) from 2011 until his retirement in October 2014. He was succeeded as CCDG by Lieutenant General John Caligari.
The Laughton Unit [Laughton Naval History Unit] is a research unit which conducts research and teaching on naval history, theory and maritime strategy.
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