Dr Louis Halewood

Philip Nicholas Lecturer in Maritime History
Postgraduate Research Co-ordinator, School of Society and Culture

I am a historian of war and diplomacy in the ninteteenth and twentieth centuries, with a particular focus on the relationship between sea power and world order in British and American strategic thought. 

I am currently a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, undertaking research for my next project, 'Sea Power, Identity, and the Creation of the 'Liberal International Order', 1920-1950'.

I joined the University of Plymouth in 2019 from Merton College, Oxford, where I completed my DPhil thesis titled 'Internationalising Sea Power: Ideas of World Order and the Maintenance of Peace, 1890-1919'. At Merton, I held the John Roberts MC3 (Great War) scholarship between 2015-18, and a Smith Richardson Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship at International Security Studies, Yale University, between 2018-19. I previously completed my BA in War Studies at King's College London, and my MA in History at the University of Calgary. My teaching and research interests focus on sea power and the history of war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Qualifications

BA War Studies, King's College London

MA History, University of Calgary

DPhil History, University of Oxford

Roles on external bodies

Councillor of the Navy Records Society

Teaching interests

First Year
HIS4001: What is History?
HIS4004: Fractured Isles: Britain and Ireland, 1640-1990

Second Year
HIST528: First World War at Sea

Third Year
HIST625: Anglo-American Relations in Maritime Perspective

Postgraduate
MAHI729: Sea Power in History
MAHI730: All at Sea: Research Skills for Maritime History

Areas of expertise for postgraduate supervision
Maritime and Naval History
The First World War
The League of Nations
Grand Strategy
The History of Strategic Thought

Research interests

Maritime and Naval History

The First World War

The History of Strategic Thought

Modern British History

Other research

I am currently a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress, where I am working on my next project, titled 'Sea Power, Identity, and the Creation of the 'Liberal International Order', 1920-1950'.

I am also currently completing a book project which builds on my DPhil thesis, completed at the University of Oxford, examining the role of sea power and international naval co-operation in visions of world order between 1890 and 1919, culminating in the creation of the League of Nations. Elements of this work have recently been published in the article ''Peace throughout the oceans and seas of the world': British maritime strategic thought and world order, 1892-1919', which won the 2020 Sir Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History.

I have previously published on other aspects of the First World War, including an article on intelligence assessments of the success of attrition on the Western Front between 1914 and 1917. I have also co-edited a collection on time and the First World War, and a volume on economic warfare, grand strategy, and sea power between 1650-1945.

Conferences organised

Oxford Naval History Conference 2017, 'Economic Warfare and the Sea, 1650-1950', All Souls College, Oxford (13-15th July 2017)

9th Conference of the International Society for First World War Studies: 'War Time', University of Oxford (10-11th November 2016)

Bow River Graduate History Conference, University of Calgary (22-24th January 2015)

Other academic activities

Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress (2023)

Smith Richardson Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, International Security Studies, Yale University (2018-19)

Edward S. Miller Research Fellowship, United States Naval War College (2017)