Dr Steve Morewood

• PhD
• Fellow Royal Historical Society

• Great Power Rivalry in the Eastern Mediterranean, 10 credits
• Problems of World History in the Twentieth Century, 10 credits
• End of Empire (1st year), 10 credits
• Empire to Nation State: Greece and Turkey, 40 credits
• Conflict in the Modern Middle East, 20 credits
• America as a World Power, 20  credits
• War and Peace in the Modern World, 20 credits
• Dissertations (3rd years) covering the above themes

Steve Morewood's research interests include the military, political and strategic history of the modern East Mediterranean region (late19th and 20th centuries). He has supervised several PhDs to a successful conclusion with some students going on to publish their dissertations in book form. Topics have included the Greek press during the Greco-Turkish War of 1920-22, Turkey and the Straits in the early Cold War period and the Greek-Cypriot perspective in the 1974 war over Cyprus. At Masters level, supervised topics have included the Italian Front in the First World War, the Suez Crisis (such as the role of the Manchester Guardian) and various aspects of the Desert War (such as Operation Compass, the role of General Auchinleck, the role of air power, and morale). One thesis, on the role of weather and how it affected air operations, won a national thesis prize.

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

Political, strategic, military, and economic history of the modern East Mediterranean region (19th & 20th centuries). More broadly, I am interested in the origins of the Second World War (especially from the British perspective) and the early part of the Second World War, particularly in relation to the North African campaign. I am completing the first of two volumes on Operation Compass, the opening offensive, which saw the British Western Desert Force obliterate the Italian Tenth Army. In parallel timewise, I am researching and writing another book called Defending Greece against Nazi Germany: Diplomacy, Strategy and the Eden-Dill Mission. Several book chapters have been published including one on Britain and the Italo-Abyssinian Crisis for G.B. Strang ed., Clash of Empires: International Responses to the Italian Invasion of Abyssinia (Ashgate) and, most recently, ‘When Two Worlds Collide: Britain, Italy and the Suez Canal in the fascist Era’ in a book on the Italian connection to Suez, arising from a conference in Turin in 2019.

In 2022 my chapter, 'When Two Worlds Collide: Britain, Italy and Suez in the Fascist Era' was published in Barbara Curli (ed.), Italy and the Suez Canal from the mid nineteenth century to the Cold War A Mediterranean History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). This arose from a conference in Turin in June 2019 on the Suez Canal's history.

In November 2021 I was interviewed, alongside my colleague Simon Jackson, by the Australian production company, Wildbear Entertainment in London, for their series The World War (Sky History network).

I am currently working on a two-volume history of Operation Compass to be published by Pen & Sword.

I am a committee member of the British International History Group, a member of the Royal United Services Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Currently I am external examiner for the History department at the University of Hull. Contributor to History Today.