The Department of History at Southern Miss permits students to concentrate in a wide variety of research areas related to the study of war. One approach, known as the war & society school, ordinarily examines the links between the social, cultural, and political values of a society and the wars they wage. Several members of the department of history have specialties that complement the study of war & society, including Drs. Kyle Zelner (US Colonial), Phyllis Jestice (Medieval), William Scarborough, Greg O’Brien (Native American), Stephen Sloan (veterans oral history), and Eric Nelson (European religious wars). A complete list of their interests is here. As that list will show, many war & society scholars pay scant attention to operational military history, choosing to focus instead on subjects like gender, class, race, and culture. Although a certain knowledge and familiarity with traditional battle history is important to war & society projects, it need not be an integral component.

Our graduate program can also support projects by students interested in more traditional military history such as operations, strategy, and tactics. Our faculty includes two professors (myself and Dr. Andrew Wiest ) who have taught at Air Force institutions and LTC (ret.) Kevin Dougherty, a West Point and Army War College graduate and career Army officer. Thus our program allows for a great deal of flexibility and creativity in combining the traditional and war & society approaches to the study of the history of war.

MA candidates can pursue a degree in American History, European History, or War and Society. All PhD candidates must focus first and foremost on American and/or European history, but can do so through a War and Society track. We thus hope to produce students who can speak to wider literatures and go on the job market as broadly defined and broadly trained scholars. We also strongly encourage graduate students to think about the wonderful opportunities available through USM’s dynamic International Studies program.

If this program interests you, please contact me. More information, as well as a link to the necessary application procedures, can be found at: our graduate program .