MICHAEL A. PALMER
Dr. Michael A. Palmer is a professor of history with the Program in Maritime Studies and
the Department of History at East Carolina University. He has served as interim chair of the
Department of Geography (1997–1999), chair of the Department of History (1999–2007)
and Interim Chair of the Department of English (2007–2009). Professor Palmer earned his
Ph.D. from Temple University in 1981where he studied under the late Russell F. Weigley.
Between 1983 and 1991, Professor Palmer worked at the Naval Historical Center in
Washington, DC. He served as an assistant editor of the Center’s The Naval War of 1812: A
Documentary History series. In 1986 he transferred to the newly established Contemporary
History Branch and produced that office’s first monograph—Origins of the Maritime Strategy:
American Naval Strategy in the First Postwar Decade (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1988).
In the summer of 1988 Professor Palmer worked as a field historian for the Center in the
Persian Gulf, where he focused on the operations of Special Forces. In the fall of 1990
during Operation Desert Shield, Palmer worked in OP-603—the staff of the Office of the
Chief of Naval Operations’ (OPNAV) Strategic Concepts Group in the Pentagon.
Professor Palmer is the author of numerous books and articles. His published works include:
The Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2006);
Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005); Lee Moves North: Robert E. Lee on the Offensive,
1862-1863 (New York: John Wiley & Son, 1998); The War That Never Was (Arlington, VA:
Vandamere Press, 1994; New York: Ibooks, 2003); Guardians of the Gulf: The Growth of
American Involvement in the Persian Gulf, 1833-1992 (New York: The Free Press, 1992); On
Course for Desert Storm: The U.S. Navy and the Persian Gulf (Washington: Naval Historical
Center, 1992); Arctic Strike: The Campaign on the Northern Flank (New York: Avon Books,
1991); Origins of the Maritime Strategy: The Development of American Naval Strategy, 1945-1955. 2nd
ed. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990); Origins of the Maritime Strategy: American Naval
Strategy in the First Postwar Decade (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1988); and Stoddert’s
War: Naval Operations during the Quasi-War with France, 1798-1801 (Columbia, South Carolina:
University of South Carolina Press, 1987; Classics of Naval Literature, Naval Institute Press,
1999). He has contributed to a variety of journals and magazines including: the United States
Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval History, The American Neptune, The Mariner’s Mirror, Armed
Forces Journal International, Air Power History, Military Review, Armed Forces & Society, The Journal
of Military History, The International Journal of Maritime History, The North Carolina Historical
Review, The American Historical Review, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, War in
History, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, and the Naval War College Review.
Professor Palmer has received the Department of the Navy’s Meritorious Civilian Service
Medal, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature from the Naval Order of the
United States, the Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History, and First Prize from
the John A. Adams Center at the Virginia Military Institute for the fourth annual award for
the best unpublished paper dealing with the United States military in the Cold War era
(1945-1991) —“The Genesis of the Sixth Fleet: The U.S. Navy and Early Cold War Foreign
Policy in the Mediterranean, 1946–1948.”
Professor Palmer resides in Greenville, North Carolina.