Dr Matthew Seligmann

Role: Reader
Area: Social Sciences - History

Telephone number: 01604 89 2095
Email address: matthew.seligmann@northampton.ac.uk

I am a graduate of the Universities of Edinburgh and Sussex.

My early research was on Anglo-German colonial relations, but I have since moved on to work on the origins of wars, the First World War in particular.

I am Reader in History here at Northampton, having joined the department in 1993.

I serve on the Council of the Navy Records Society. I am a member of the Beirat (Council) of the Prinz-Albert-Gesellschaft, an organization that promotes Anglo-German academic links through conferences and publications. I am a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

My main teaching areas are: twentieth century international, military and naval history, Germany during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Origins of the First World War.

PhD supervision

I would be happy to supervise dissertations on issues of great power politics in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Particular areas of interest include Anglo-German relations, the origins of wars and the development of the Royal Navy's plans for war before 1914.

My main area of interest is international relations (especially Anglo-German relations) before the First World War. Within that, my core concern is the development of threat perception in Britain and Germany (especially through intelligence operations) and the impact perceived threats have on policy. I am currently working on aspects of the Anglo-German naval race before 1914, especially the origins of the Dreadnought and Invincible.

Publications on NECTAR

Jump to: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2003 | 2002

2011

Seligmann, M. (2011) The Anglo-German naval race: from reality to myth and back again. Invited Presentation presented to: Reappraising the First World War Seminar Series: Britain, The First World War and Sea Power, Imperial War Museum, London, 2 June 2011.
Seligmann, M. (2011) The Royal Navy and the German threat: the trade defence dimension. Paper presented to: The Fischer Controversy 50 Years On, German Historical Institute, London, 13-15 October 2011.

2010

Seligmann, M. (2010) A prelude to the reforms of Admiral Sir John Fisher: the creation of the Home Fleet, 1902-3 (The Julian Corbett Prize Essay for 2007). Historical Research. 83(221), pp. 506-519. 0950-3471.
Seligmann, M. (2010) Intelligence information and the 1909 naval scare: the secret foundations of a public panic. War in History. 17(1), pp. 37-59. 0968-3445.
Seligmann, M. (2010) Rum, sodomy, prayer and the lash revisited. Invited Presentation presented to: Houghtons and Brafield Local History Society, Northamptonshire, 14 April 2010.
Seligmann, M. (2010) Russian espionage - radio interview for Radio Northampton. (Unpublished)
Seligmann, M. (2010) Spies in uniform: British intelligence on Germany before WW1. Lecture presented to: Rugby Historical Association Meeting, Rugby, Warwickshire, England, 10 February 2010.

2009

Seligmann, M. (2009) Member of Editorial Board. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge. 1469-0764.
Seligmann, M. (2009) Arthur Marder, the German threat and the origins of HMS Invincible revisited. Seminar Presentation presented to: International Commission for Maritime History Seminar, King's College, London, 26 February 2009.
Seligmann, M. (2009) Commentary on 'Civil leadership in an age of popular wars'. Invited Presentation presented to: Bringing Personality Back in: Leadership and War - A British-German Comparison 1740-1945. 28th Prinz-Albert-Gesellschaft Conference, Schloss Ehrenburg, Coburg, Germany, 11-12 September 2009.
Seligmann, M. (2009) Commentary on 'Constructions of military masculinity in reference to weapon systems'. Invited Presentation presented to: Myths, Gender and the Military Conquest of Air and Sea, University of Oldenburg, Germany, 22 - 25 April 2009.
Seligmann, M. (2009) Intelligence information and the 1909 naval scare. Seminar Presentation presented to: University of Salford Intelligence History Seminar, University of Salford, 19 October 2009.
Seligmann, M. (2009) Lieutenant-Colonel Delme-Radcliffe's report on the 1906 eruption of Vesuvius, Italy: some further comments and some corrections of an historical nature. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. 179, pp. 270-271. 0377-0273.
Seligmann, M. and Hughes, M. (2009) Losing the Peace: Failed Settlements and the Road to War. Stroud: The History Press. 9780752452388.

2008

Seligmann, M. (2008) New weapons for new targets: Sir John Fisher, the threat from Germany, and the building of H.M.S. Dreadnought and H.M.S. Invincible, 1902-1907. International History Review. XXX(2), pp. 303-331. 0707-5332.
Seligmann, M. (2008) Prince Louis of Battenberg: the advantages and disadvantages of being a Serene Highness in the Royal Navy. In: Urbach, K. (ed.) Royal Kinship: Anglo-German Family Networks, 1815-1918. Munich, Germany: Saur Verlag. pp. 159-173.
Seligmann, M. (2008) Rum, sodomy, prayers and the lash revisited: Churchill's views on naval tradition contextualized. Seminar Presentation presented to: De Montford University History Research Seminar, De Montford University, Leicester, 10 December 2008.
Seligmann, M. (2008) Switching horses: the admiralty's recognition of the threat from Germany, 1900-1905. International History Review. XXX(2), pp. 239-258. 0707-5332.
Seligmann, M. (2008) The Treaty of Versailles. Lecture presented to: Dulwich College History Society, Dulwich College, London, 6 November 2008.
Seligmann, M. (2008) The alternatives to bombing Hiroshima were not morally superior. The Guardian. .
Seligmann, M. (2008) Total war. Lecture presented to: Contemporary Debates, University of Central England, Birmingham, 9 October 2008.
Seligmann, M. (2008) While I am in it I am not of it: a Naval attache's reflections on the conduct of British diplomacy and foreign policy, 1906-1908. In: Mosslang, M. and Riotte, T. (eds.) The Diplomats' World: A Cultural History of Diplomacy, 1815-1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 433-460.

2007

Seligmann, M. (2007) Council Member. Navy Records Society.
Seligmann, M. (2007) Germany, the Russo-Japanese War and the road to the Great War. In: Kowner, R. (ed.) The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War. London: Routledge. pp. 109-123.
Seligmann, M. (2007) Naval Intelligence from Germany: the Reports of the British Naval Attachés in Berlin, 1906-1914. Aldershot: Ashgate (for the Navy Records Society). 9780754661573.

2006

Seligmann, M. (2006) British intelligence in Germany before the First World War. Paper presented to: British Commission for Military History Spring Conference: Intelligence in Peace & War, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 06 May 2006.
Seligmann, M. (2006) Hors de combat? The management, mismanagement and mutilation of the War Office Archive. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. 84(337), pp. 52-58. 0037-9700.
Seligmann, M. (2006) Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 0199261504.

2005

Seligmann, M. (2005) The end of the Second World War in Europe. Paper presented to: British Commission for Military History Summer Conference: How Wars End, Joint Services Command and Staff College, 09-10 July 2005.

2003

Seligmann, M., Davison, J. and McDonald, J. (2003) In the Shadow of the Swastika: Life in Germany under the Nazis, 1933-1945. Staplehurst: Spellmount. 1862272042.
Seligmann, M. (2003) Military diplomacy in a military monarchy? Wilhelm II's relations with the British service attaches in Berlin, 1903-1914. In: Mombauer, A. and Deist, W. (eds.) The Kaiser: New Research on Wilhelm II's Role in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 176-194.

2002

Seligmann, M. (2002) 'A barometer of national confidence': a British assessment of the role of insecurity in the formulation of German military policy before the First World War. The English Historical Review. 117(471), pp. 333-355. 1477-4534.
Hughes, M. and Seligmann, M. (2002) Does Peace Lead to War? Peace Settlements and Conflict in the Modern Age. Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd. 0750925140.
Seligmann, M. (2002) German and British imperialism in comparative perspective (‘Deutscher und Britischer Imperialismus in vergleichender Perspektive’): Seminar at the Naturkundemuseum Coburg, 5-6 September 2001. German History: the Journal of the German History Society. 20(2), pp. 225-228. 0266-3554.

This list was generated from NECTAR on Thu May 24 05:56:27 2012 BST.

Other publications

Books

Rivalry in Southern Africa 1893-1899: The Transformation of German Colonial Policy (Macmillan, 1998)
Germany''from Reich to Republic, 1871-1918: Politics, Hierarchy and Elites (Macmillan, 2000), with R. McLean
Leadership in Conflict 1914-1918 (Pen and Sword, 2000), with M. Hughes
Does Peace Lead to War? Peace Settlements and Conflict in the Modern Age (Sutton, 2002), with M. Hughes
In the Shadow of the Swastika: Life in Germany under the Nazis, 1933-1945 (Spellmount, 2003), with J. McDonald and J. Davison
Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War(Oxford University Press, 2006)
Naval Intelligence from Germany: The Correspondence of the British Naval Attachés in Berlin, 1906-1914 (Navy Records Society, 2007)
The Royal Navy and the German Threat, 1901-1914: Admiralty Plans to protect Britain Trade in a War against Germany (Oxford University Press forthcoming May 2012).

Articles and Book Chapters

'The Pfeil Family and the Development of German Colonial Ambitions in Southern Africa: A Study of Diplomacy and Colonial Trends', German History, 12, 1 (1994)
'Maps as the Progenitors of Territorial Disputes: Two Examples from Nineteenth Century Southern Africa', Imago Mundi, 47 (1995)
'Germany and the Origins of the First World War in the Eyes of the American Diplomatic Establishment', German History, 15, 3 (1997)
'World War One and the Undermining of the German-Jewish Identity as seen through American Diplomatic Documents', in B. Thaithe and T. Thornton (eds), War: Identities in Conflict 1300-2000 (Sutton, 1998)
'The Battle for the Dodecanese, 1943: A Reassessment', Imperial War Museum Review, 12 (1999), with M. Hughes
'Imperium/Empire/Reich: An Anglo-German Comparison of a Concept of Rule', German History, 17, 2 (1999)
'Maps as the Expression of German Colonial Ambitions: South African Examples and British Reactions', The British Cartographic Society Proceedings, 36 (1999)
'James Watson Gerard: American Diplomat as Domestic Propagandist', in M. Hughes and M. Seligmann (eds), Leadership in Conflict 1914-1918 (Pen and Sword, 2000)
'A View from Berlin: Colonel Frederick Trench and the Development of British Perceptions of German Aggressive intent, 1906-1910', Journal of Strategic Studies', 23, 2 (2000)
'The Allied Invasion of Madagascar', in S. Sandler (ed.), World War II in the Pacific (Garland, 2000)
'"A Barometer of National Confidence": A British Assessment of the Role of Insecurity in the Formulation of German Military Policy before the First World War', English Historical Review, CXVII (April 2002)
'German and British Imperialism in Comparative Perspective', German History, 20/2 (2002)
'Military Diplomacy in a Military Monarchy? Kaiser Wilhelm II and the British Service Attachés in Berlin 1903-1914', in W. Deist and A. Mombauer (eds), The Kaiser: New Research on Wilhelm II's Role in Imperial Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
''Hors de Combat'? The Management, Mismanagement and Mutilation of the War Office Archive', Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 337 (Spring 2006)
'Germany, the Russo-Japanese War and the Road to the Great War' in R. Kowner (ed.), The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War (Routledge, 2007)
'Switching Horses: The Admiralty's Recognition of the Threat from Germany, 1900 -1905.' In International History Review, XXX/2 (June 2008), 239-58
'New Weapons for New Targets: Sir John Fisher, the Threat from Germany, and the Building of H. M. S. Dreadnought and H. M. S. Invincible, 1902-1907.' In International History Review, XXX/2 (June 2008), 303-31
"While I am in it I am not of it": A Naval Attaché's Reflections on the Conduct of British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, 1906-1908' in M. Mößlang and T. Riotte (eds), The Diplomats' World: A Cultural History of Diplomacy 1815-1914 (Oxford University Press, 2008).
'Prince Louis of Battenberg: The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a Serene Highness in the Royal Navy', in Karina Urbach (ed.) Royal Kinship: Anglo-German Family Networks 1815-1918 (Saur Verlag, 2008)
'A Prelude to the Reforms of Admiral Sir John Fisher: The Creation of the Home Fleet, 1902-1903' (The Julian Corbett Prize Essay for 2007). In Historical Research, 83 (2010), 506-19
'Lieutenant-Colonel Delmé-Radcliffe's Report on the 1906 Eruption of Vesuvius, Italy: Some Further Comments and some Corrections of an Historical Nature.' In Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, 179 (2009), 270-1
'Intelligence Information and the 1909 Naval Scare: The Secret Foundations of a Public Panic.' In War in History, XVII (2010), 37-59
'A German Preference for a Medium Range Battle? British Assumptions about German Naval Gunnery, 1914-1915.' In War in History 19 (2012), 32-47

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