Alex Roland
| Title: | Professor |
| Office Location: | 320 Carr Bldg |
| Office Phone: | 919 684 2758 |
| Email Address: | alex.roland@duke.edu |
Education
- PhD Duke University, 1974
- MA University of Hawaii, 1970
- BS United States Naval Academy, 1966
Research Interests
I study military history and the history of technology. My focus has ranged over all of Western experience, and I have recently converted my undergraduate course in military history to a comparative world military history course. I have written about chariots in the second millennium B.C., Greek fire in medieval Byzantium, and computers and aerospace technology in the twentieth century. While I study the history of technology in general, I also focus on the ways in which technology has shaped war and war has altered technology.
Awards/Recognitions
Harold K. Johnson Professor of Military History, Military History Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1988-1989 Fellow, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994-1995 Dr. Leo Shifrin Professor of Naval-Military History, U.S. Naval Academy, 2001-2002
Miscellaneous
Separate from my scholarship and teaching, I am a student and critic of the United States civilian space program. I spent eight stimulating and rewarding years (1973-1981) as a historian with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, but I have come to believe that the agency lost its way after the Apollo program. I have written extensively on this topic. My other extracurricular activities include running, tennis, mystery and historical novels, and occasional sailing when I can find my way to the sea.
Teaching (Fall 2008):
- HISTORY 149.01, World military history
Synopsis
- Old chem 116, TuTh 01:15 PM-02:30 PM
- POLSCI 219S.01, American grand strategy
Synopsis
- Perkins 307, M 03:05 PM-05:25 PM
- HISTORY 359.01, Rdngs mltry hist/science/tech
- Carr 229, W 07:15 PM-09:45 PM
Recent Publications
Books- with Philip Shiman, Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).
- The Military-industrial Complex (Washington: American Historical Association, 2001).
- Peter Galison and Alex Roland ed., Atmospheric Flight in the Twentieth Century (Dordrecht, Ned.: Kluwer, 2000). paperback ed. 2001