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

Paul Douglas Lockhart is a historian of war and society in the Western world 1500-1945, with an emphasis on northern Europe during the early modern period. His published scholarship - including seven single-author books - focuses on the history of war on several levels: on the history of the art of war and the evolution of military technology; on war and state-building in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and on the intersection of war, religion, and politics during the 'age of religious wars'. Much of Lockhart's work centres around the Oldenburg dynastic state - Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Scanian lands, and the Duchies - in the period between the Renaissance and the creation of Denmark's absolute monarchy in 1660. He has also written extensively on the military history of the American Revolution. 

Professor Lockhart regularly teaches advanced and graduate-level courses on the history of war and society in the West. His more common offerings include classes on the history of the art of war in Europe and America, the history of weapons technology and its impact on the conduct of war, pre-modern and modern naval history, and the history of strategic and tactical thought. Lockhart's courses in early modern European history tend to address questions relating to statecraft, state power, grand strategy, and culture. They include classes on the 'Wars of Religion' in sixteenth-century Europe, the Thirty Years' War, and on the history of the Scandinavian kingdoms in the stormaktstid ('Age of Greatness'). 

Lockhart is firmly committed to the idea that active scholars should strive to make their work accessible to a broader reading public. His record of public engagement includes three trade non-fiction books, collaborations with museums and fine arts organisations, media appearances, and frequent lectures to both academic and lay audiences.

For enquiries relating to Lockhart's books and public appearances, please contact his literary representative, Lisa Adams, at https://garamondagency.com/ .

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

Curriculum Vitae

Lockhart UK public CV Aug 2025.pdf 199.09 KB

Research Statement

While my research focuses on the experience of war in early modern and modern history, it can be divided into two distinctive but overlapping topical areas. First is the role of warfare in state formation in early modern Europe, and the complex relationship between confessional identity, international politics, and the conduct of war. I addressed both of these themes directly in my two earlier monographs about the Oldenburg dynastic state 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, chronologically and topically, but still the underlying themes relate to the role of armed conflict as a factor in the creation and eventual diminishment of the great Nordic dynastic states. Even my current project, my book manuscript on the infamous 'Parson of Vejlby' murder case from 1625-26 Denmark (Days of Wrath: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of Søren Jensen Quist) - while a microhistory whose themes relate primarily to the power relationships between clergy, the state, and ordinary people - also concerns the long-term local disruption caused by war and military occupation. 

My second major research area, the operation art of war in the early modern and pre-modern West, is the category into which my three trade books, written for general audiences, fall. The intention with all three of these books was to combine deep archival research with compelling narrative, so that each would stand on its own as a work of scholarship, but written in a way so as to make them attractive to non-specialists. 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 in the midst of the American Revolution; The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington (HarperCollins, 2011) revisits the traditional, heavily-flawed scholarship on the nature and consequences of the first major land battle of the Revolution, taking American and British sources into account. 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 supposedly 'revolutionary' weapons technologies often do not lead to substantial changes in the art of war - on land, at sea, and in the air - and the growing importance of industrial productive capacity to lasting military power. 

My next research project will fit into both categories: a study of the late medieval/early modern roots of Denmark's brief career as a regional great power in the seventeenth century. 

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 October 2025. 
  • 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
  • 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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