David Fitzgerald

There’s the joke about Sun Tzu being basic instructions for idiots like “feed your troops” but the most important part of Clausewitz is also just “think about what you are actually trying to accomplish”

A nice job has opened in my department at Cambridge: Assistant Prof. in US History since 1920.

Please share widely!

No references letters required up front. Applications close 27 Oct. 2025.🗃️
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

‘It’s a monster’: How generative AI is forcing university professors to rethink learning As students turn to ChatGPT, educators warn that critical thinking, academic integrity and the future of the humanities are at stake

I spoke to the Irish Times for this very good and rounded piece on the real-world effects of C***GPT in the humanities classroom: www.irishtimes.com/ireland/educ...

Shameless self-promotion and all of that, but it is genuinely unsettling to see how some of the most cartoonish ideas that I came across while writing the book have turned into actual policy.

maybe 10% of the current crop of GOFOs legitimately understand that the US public's default position towards the military historically is somewhere between ambivalence and dislike, and that the last several decades have been different because a variety of institutions made efforts to change it

How FDR Invented National Security A presidential speech in 1937 marked an unexpected turn in U.S. strategic thought.

An excerpt in @foreignpolicy.com from Andrew Preston's superb new book, Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/30/f...

Not your dad’s WW2–find out more in this interview I did recently and get 50% off the book at the same time 🥳

It was great to catch up with @ceceliacancellaro.bsky.social but also really cool to see my book out in the wild again!

The spicier take is while this will never happen, there objectively should be an investigation into what unauthorized/unknown to the rest of DoD/the executive communications CENTCOM was having off the books with the Israeli government, because suffice to say I have my suspicions

Never thought that writing a piece years ago on the post-Gulf War parades would be of contemporary relevance, but here we are.

I hate when my historical research is relevant. The GI Rights Hotline has a history going back to before its 1994 founding by a network of peace activists after the Gulf War. GI counseling has been a cornerstone of peace activism since the Vietnam War. Some of the same ppl are still doing it. 🗃️

OK, I know more about the CA case and we have more information on the deployments coming out, so a few thoughts.

1. This is a massive overreach of POTUS authority. Using Section 12406 to federalize/deploy military forces w/out also invoking the Insurrection Act is literally unprecedented. 1/

Friends, followers, and colleagues: some professional news, as they say.

After four wonderful years with the US Army War College, I resigned my position effective May 2, 2025. 1/

Utterly disgraceful and an open assault on the historical profession. These are utterly professional, non-partisan advisors, overseeing and giving advice to the State department on the declassification of US government documents.

Took a while, but the ad is also now up on an actual jobs website! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMV502/l...

A book cover with the main title in white text reading "The Greater Second World War" and subtitle in yellow text reading "Global Perspectives" in front of a brown wall with holes and deterioration.

ICYMI, Team #MilitaryHistory - the stellar volume edited expertly by Andrew Buchanan and Ruth Lawlor, "The Greater Second World War: Global Perspectives," has reached its publication date! Head to @cornellupress.bsky.social's page to get one. I'll wait...
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

wow the US Army now has officially less understanding of and care for their soldiers' morale & wellbeing than the Italian army of 1918! way to go, guys!

happy to sell Pete Hegseth a copy of my book to explain why this is Not Smart but it might have too many long words for him to understand

Lecturer in International Economic History | University College Cork UCC wishes to appoint an academic to the role of Lecturer in International Economic History. Reporting to the Head of School of History.

Job alert! My dept is hiring a lecturer in international economic history. This a permanent, full-time post and it's (hopefully) a really good time to be joining the School of History here. Very happy to chat with anyone about the role, UCC, or life in Cork in general. 🗃️

www.ucc.ie/en/future-hu...

Lecturer in International Economic History | University College Cork UCC wishes to appoint an academic to the role of Lecturer in International Economic History. Reporting to the Head of School of History.

Job alert! My dept is hiring a lecturer in international economic history. This a permanent, full-time post and it's (hopefully) a really good time to be joining the School of History here. Very happy to chat with anyone about the role, UCC, or life in Cork in general. 🗃️

www.ucc.ie/en/future-hu...

We're hiring! I can echo what Jay says in his second post that there's a lot of exciting stuff on the way in our dept and that Cork is a really great place to live.

The Society for Military History is now archiving historical materials related to military history that are disappearing from federal or state websites. We are open to submissions, anonymously or otherwise. Please see
www.smh-hq.org/archivedreso... and note there the submission links.

I am a recent member of the Society for Military History @smh-historians.bsky.social, so I'm not in charge or anything, but I have mutuals who are members, too.

What is SMH saying about the erasures from public military history sites? Is there a statement? Is it on the agenda for the conference?

not by any stretch the first person to say this but: it is darkly funny how nakedly imperialist Trump turned out to be given the lengths to which some professional opinion havers went to take his "isolationism" intellectually seriously

U.S. military removes words 'history,' 'respect,' 'dignity' from digital presence as part of DEI review The Department of Defense issued a Digital Content Refresh document to comply with DEI removal from the armed services. TPR obtained a document laying out the guidance of what to remove.

For those historians keeping track, esp #milhist folks, “history” is now a flagged word bc of its apparent connection to #DEI. Canary in a coal mine, indeed. @smh-historians.bsky.social 🗃️ www.tpr.org/military-vet...

now seems like a good time to welcome "real rules-based liberal international order has never been tried" libs to the Popular Front group chat

Down for me as well. Maybe try archive.org? I feel like they scraped a lot of the DTIC material at some stage

WHAT?!

Bureaucracy, famously not important in war

The intentional decimation of archival infrastructure sounds like something a scholarly society might object to