Paul Douglas Lockhart, Ph.D.

Department:
Sch of Humanities & Cult. Studies
Title:
Professor, History
Address:
Allyn Hall 437, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy, Dayton, OH 45435-0001
Email:
paul.lockhart@wright.edu

I am a historian of early modern Europe, with an emphasis on the intersection of politics, religion, and violence. Most of my published scholarship focuses on the history of Scandinavia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with a principal emphasis on the Oldenburg dynastic state before the advent of absolutism: Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Scanian lands, and the German ‘duchies’ of Schleswig and Holstein. I have also written extensively on the history of war, in particular the history of military technology and of the American Revolution.

I regularly teach advanced and graduate-level courses on early modern European history and the history of war and society. My more commonly-offered courses include early modern Scandinavia, religion and war in early modern Europe, the history of weapons technology and the art of war, and the history of monarchy.

I am firmly committed, in theory and in practice, to the idea of public-facing humanities, and the notion that active scholars should strive to make their work accessible to a broader reading public when possible. My record of public engagement includes three non-fiction trade books, articles for popular history magazines like Military History Quarterly and Desperta Ferro, collaborations with museums and fine arts organizations, frequent media appearances, and regular public lectures for academic and lay audiences.

For enquiries relating to my books and public appearances, please contact my literary representative, Lisa Adams of the Garamond Agency: https://garamondagency.com.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7731-2238 

Curriculum Vitae

PD Lockhart CV 2026.pdf 190.17 KB

Research Statement

My written work can be divided into two distinctive but overlapping topical areas. First is the history of the Oldenburg dynastic state, broadly conceived, including the non-Danish lands of the composite monarchy: Norway, Iceland, and the Duchies. While my approach to, and interest in, the history of the Oldenburg dynastic state is wide-ranging, most of my work considers the relationship between confessional identity, social discipline, and the expansion of the central authority. As an ancillary to that focus, I also study the impact of war (and the marshalling of resources for war) on state-building in Denmark. I address these themes in my first two monographs about Oldenburg Denmark in the wake of the Protestant Reformation: Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559-1596 (Brill, 2004) and Denmark in the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648: King Christian IV and the Decline of the Oldenburg State (AUP, 1996). My two Scandinavian survey histories – Denmark, 1513-1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy (Oxford UP, 2007) and Sweden in the Seventeenth Century (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2004) – take a broader view, as one might expect from a survey, but still the underlying themes relate to war, religion, and state power. My current book project – my microhistory of the infamous ‘Parson of Vejlby’ murder case from 1625-26 Denmark (Days of Wrath: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of Søren Jensen Quist) – examines the power relationships between clergy, the state, and ordinary people in a rural village, and the persistence of Viking-era notions about law and honour.

My second major research area has emerged from my secondary interests and my desire to write public-facing scholarship. This centres around the operational art of war in the early modern and modern West, the role of developments in military technology in the evolution of that art, and the relationship between American, European, and global ways of war during the period 1500-1945. All three of my trade books fall into this general category. My intention, with each of these three books, was to combine deep archival research with compelling narrative so as to attract a much wider readership than I could with a more conventional academic monograph. The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (Smithsonian Books/ HarperCollins, 2008) is a military biography of the Prussian émigré who introduced uniform tactical and administrative systems to the Continental Army during the American Revolution; The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington (HarperCollins, 2011) revisits (and substantially revises) the traditional, patriotic, heavily flawed narrative of the first major land engagement of the Revolutionary War. My latest book, Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare (Basic Books, 2021) examines the relationship between technology, industry, tactics, and strategy in the half-millennium leading up to the atomic age, demonstrating how surprisingly tenuous the connection between technology and tactics has been, how supposedly ‘revolutionary’ weapons technologies often do not lead to substantial changes in the practice of war, and the growing importance of industrial productive capacity to lasting military power. 

Publications

Scholarly Books

  • Denmark, 1513-1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy. Oxford University Press UK, 2007.
  • Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark’s Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559-1596. Brill, 2004.
  • Sweden in the Seventeenth Century. European History in Perspective (ed. Jeremy Black). Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2004.
  • Denmark in the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648: King Christian IV and the Decline of the Oldenburg State. Associated University Presses, 1996.

Trade Books

  • Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare. Basic Books, 2021.
    • Korean edition: Hwa Ryeok. Yeoksarul Dwejeebun Game Changer. Red River, 2023.
    • Chinese edition, forthcoming 2026.  
  • The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington. HarperCollins, 2011.
  • The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. HarperCollins/ Smithsonian Books, 2008.

Scholarly Chapters and Articles (selected)

  • 'War and Diplomacy'. In Morten Fink-Jensen and Arthur der Weduwen, eds. Brill Companion to the Nordic Reformation. Leiden: Brill, 2026
  • 'Denmark and Sweden: The Struggle for the Baltic, 1588-1624'. In Steffen Heiberg, Juliette Roding, Magriet Lacy-Bruijn, Rolof van Hövel tot Westerflier, and Poul Holstein, eds. Christian IV. Rex Splendens and Rex Humilis. Rotterdam: Karwansaray, 2024. 
  • 'Denmark'. In Peter Schroeder, ed. Ashgate Research Companion to the Thirty Years' War. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2013. 
  • 'Political Language and Wartime Propaganda in Denmark, 1625-1629'. European History Quarterly 31 (2001), 5-42. 
  • 'Dansk propaganda under Kejserkrigen, 1625-1629'. Historie (Efterår 1998), 222-48. 
  • 'Religion and Princely Liberties: Denmark's Intervention in the Thirty Years War, 1618-1625'. The International History Review 17 (1995), 390-416. 

Articles in Popular Magazines and Journals (selected)

  • 'Gustavo Adolfo. El hombre y la leyenda.' Desperta Ferro: Historia militar y política del mundo moderno 27 (April - May 2017), 52-55. 
  • 'Attack on the White Mountain, 1620'. MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History (Winter 2016), 58-65. 
  • 'Bunker Hill. La derrota triunfal de la rebelión americana'. Desperta Ferro: Historia militar y politíca del mundo moderno 14 (February - March 2015), 60-65. 
  • 'Bicocca, 1522: The First Firefight'. MHQ (Summer 2013). 
  • 'The gun that should have changed everything'. MHQ (Winter 2013)

Awards, Honors, and Appointments

  • 2023 - Trustee's Award for Faculty Excellence, Wright State University
  • 2021 - Elected to Det Kongelige Danske Selskab til Fædrelandets Historie
  • 2020 - Ohio Distinguished Historian, The Ohio Academy of History
  • 2014 - Brage Golding Distinguished Professor of Research, Wright State University
  • 2014 - Outstanding Research Award, College of Liberal Arts, Wright State University
  • 2000 - National Endowment for the Humanities, Visiting Distinguished Professor, SUNY/ Potsdam College

Grants and Fellowships

  • 2025 - Bodtker Family Foundation Grant, Danish American Heritage Society
  • 2025 - College of Liberal Arts Seed Grant, Wright State University
  • 2025 - Professional Development Leave (competitive; one semester), Wright State University
  • 2017 - Professional Development Leave (competitive; full year), Wright State University, for 2017-18
  • 2004 - Professional Development Leave (competitive; full year), Wright State University, for 2004-05
  • 1996 - Professional Development Leave (competitive; full year), Wright State University, for 1996-97
  • 1996 - Sabbatical Year Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies
  • 1996 - Travel Grant, The American Philosophical Society
  • 1988 - Travel Grant, Henrik Kauffmann Fund, The American Scandinavian Foundation
  • 1988 - Ludwig Kruhe Dissertation Fellowship, Purdue University
  • 1986 - Jacob Javits Graduate Fellowship, US Department of Education (through 1989)

Professional Affiliations/Memberships

  • Det Kongelige Danske Selskab til Fædrelandets Historie
  • The Sixteenth Century Society
  • The Renaissance Society of America
  • The Society for Court Studies
  • The Ohio Academy of History
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