Professor Jonathan Boff FRHistS

• PhD War Studies, King’s College London 
• MA History of Warfare, King’s College London 
• BA PPE, Merton College, Oxford University

I joined the University of Birmingham in September 2011 after completing my PhD at King’s College London. Before returning to academia in 2005 I spent twenty years working in the private sector, much of the time in Asia.

Professor Boff teaches on a range of military history-related subjects, including 2nd Year Undergraduate courses on the First and Second World Wars, and the 3rd Year module on the history of Britain and her Army over the last hundred years. At postgraduate level he convenes the MA Military History by Distance Learning, and the MA First World War Studies.

I am keen to supervise projects on Economic Statecraft, past and present, the military history of the two world wars, British strategy from Gladstone to Churchill, and morale and combat motivation. I am particularly keen to encourage projects with a comparative/international dimension.

Past PhD students include Dr Aimee Fox-Godden, 'Inter-Theatre Learning in the British Army during the First World War' and Dr Andrew Duncan, 'The Training and Ethos of British Officers before the First World War'

Current projects include: 'Photographic Reconnaissance and Data Management in the First World War' (Nicole Chicarelli), 'Pilot Training in the Luftwaffe before and during the Second World War' (Frank Gerards), 'The psychological and moral impact of early tanks', 'The American and British occupations of Germany', 'Blitzkrieg and its imitators', 'Politics and patronage within the British Army before 1914' and 'Early USAF strategic bombing doctrine'.

Find out more - our PhD History  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My research centres on Applied History and the use of the past to provide empirical evidence for, and shed light, on the dilemmas of the present.

My current research focusses on Economic Statecraft and the use of money as a weapon of war. This brings together This brings together my previous empirical work with my earlier twenty-year career in the City. Funded by an AHRC Fellowship in Research Leadership (2020-23), this project has already spun off articles in important edited collections and academic journals and will inform a monograph to be published by Oxford University Press in 2025: 'The Age of Mammon and Mars: Money and War in the Modern World'.

I have written two prize-winning books on the First World War, Haig's Enemy (OUP, 2018) and Winning and Losing on the Western Front (CUP, 2012) as well as over a dozen peer-reviewed articles. 

Jonathan has written for newspapers and magazines including The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph and History Today. He has worked as a consultant for the British Government and Army on institutional adaptation, strategy, and economic statecraft, and has briefed the heads of the NATO armies as well as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the USA. He serves on the councils of the National Army Museum and Army Records Society, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.