Michael A. Palmer (Ph.D., Temple)

Professor and Chair of the History Department. Palmer specializes in naval command and control problems and modern naval and maritime history. Before coming to East Carolina University, he was Assistant Head of Contemporary History at the Naval Historical Center in Washington, DC. His numerous scholarly articles have appeared in the Encyclopedia of the American Military, Armed Forces Journal International, Air Power History, and War and History. He has published several books on naval and military history including Lee Moves North: Robert E. Lee on the Offensive (1998) The War That Never Was (1994), Guardians of the Gulf: The Growth of American Involvement in the Persian Gulf (1992), On Course for Desert Storm: The US Navy and the Persian Gulf (1992) and Origins of the Maritime Strategy, 2nd ed. (1990). Palmer was awarded the Meritorious Civilian Service Medal from the Department of the Navy (1991). His book Stoddert's War: Naval Operations During the Quasi-War with France 1798-1801 (1987) won the Samuel EliotMorison Award for Naval Literature and Book of the Year from the American Revolutionary War Round Table of New York. Palmer teaches classes in sea power and maritime history. 

Email: palmerm@ecu.edu

Monographs and Books

2007 American Eagle. Under Review.

2006 The Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation. Potomac Books.

2005 Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century . Harvard University Press, New York, NY.

2003 The War That Never Was . Ibooks, New York, NY (Fiction; paperback edition).

2000 Stoddert’s War: Naval Operations during the Quasi-War with France, 1798-1801, 2 nd edition, Classics of Naval Literature. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD.

1999 Lee Moves North: Robert E. Lee on the Offensive. John Wiley, New York, NY.

1999 Guardians of the Gulf: A History of America’s Expanding Role in the Persian Gulf, 1833- 1992. The Free Press, New York, NY (Paperback edition).

1998 Guardians of the Gulf: A History of America’s Expanding Role in the Persian Gulf, 1833-1992. Arabic Edition, Al Ahram Center for Translation and Publishing, Cairo, Egypt.

1994 The War That Never Was. Vandamere Press, Arlington, VA.

Book Chapters

1999 The U.S. Navy, 1783–1865. In The Oxford Companion to American Military History, John Whiteclay Chambers II, editor. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

1999 I ntroduction. In Decision at Trafalgar, Reprint edition, Dudley Pope, editor. Henry Holt and Company, New York, NY.

1998 Operation Praying Mantis. In Great American Naval Battles, Jack Sweetman, editor, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD.

Journals