Dr Sam Edwards

PhD (Lancaster)

  • School Director of Knowledge Exchange
  • Reader in Modern Political History
Publications
  • Running Historian

    • Sam read for a PhD at Lancaster University before then winning a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award to conduct research at the University of Pittsburgh. On completion of this research (which led to the publication of his Gladstone Prize short-listed monograph, Allies in Memory) Sam took up a lectureship at Manchester Metropolitan University. At Manchester Met, he discharged a number of substantive leadership roles including undergraduate programme leader, founding Director of the Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage, Head of History, and, finally, Head of the Department of History, Politics and Philosophy. Sam joined Loughborough in May 2023. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

    Sam is an experienced public historian with expertise on commemoration and heritage, transatlantic relations, film and TV history, and the history of running. He is Co-Editor of the British Journal for Military History (British Journal for Military History (gold.ac.uk) ) and Vice-Chair of the Transatlantic Studies Association (Transatlantic Studies Association ).

    Sam has extensive experience working with the media and has provided expert commentary to BBC News, BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio, CNN, Sky News, France 24, and US Government TV. He has also written for various media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Independent, War on the Rocks, American Heritage, History and Policy, BBC Online Magazine, BBC History Extra, Military History Matters, Britain at War, and The Conversation. A keen runner - and a 'running historian' – Sam has also penned articles for Runner's World and Outdoor Fitness and he’s provided expert insights (on running culture) for The Economist and BBC Radio 4.

    Beyond academia, Sam is a Trustee of Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire (ancestral home of George Washington), a Trustee of The D-Day Story (Portsmouth), and a Governor of The American Library in Norwich (a memorial established to the World War II Second Air Division, US 8th Army Air Force).

    Sam is a historian of war, memory, diplomacy, and transatlantic relations. He has particular interest in the roles played in US-UK relations by heritage, commemoration, popular culture, and sport.

    Sam has published widely in various international journals, edited three volumes in cultural and political history, and his 2015 monograph - Allies in Memory: World War II and the Politics of Transatlantic Commemoration, c.1941-2001 (CUP) - was shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Prize. His research has been funded by the ESRC, the US-UK Fulbright Commission, the US Army Military History Institute, the US Naval War College, the USAF Academy Library, and the American Philosophical Society (APS). He has recently held research fellowships at the Rothermere American Institute (RAI), Oxford, and at the George Washington Library, Mount Vernon, Virginia.

    Sam is currently working on three closely related projects:

    1. The First Friendly Invasion: The American Military in Britain, 1917-1919. This will lead to the first book-length history of the American military in World War I Britain. It has been supported by various grants and fellowships.
    2. Airstrip One: The American Military in Post-1945 Britain. This is a collaborative project also involving Prof. Clive Webb (Sussex) and Dr Hattie Hearn (American Air Museum, Duxford). It will examine, in detail, the social, cultural, and economic impact on Britain of the post-1945 US military.
    3. Anglo-American Relations at the Semiquincentennial. This project explores the major shifts and developments in Anglo-American Relations since 1776. It will lead to a number of outputs timed to coincide with the Semiquincentennial in 2026.

    Sam teaches modern history, with a particular focus on US-UK relations, 20th century war, and historical skills and methods.

    Sam has supervised four PhDs to completion. His areas of supervisory expertise are:

    • US-UK relations
    • Cultural diplomacy
    • Monuments, memorials, and commemoration
    • Cultural history of war and legacies of conflict
    • Film, TV, and memory
    • Heritage and public history
    • S. Edwards, Allies in Memory: World War II and the Politics of Transatlantic Commemoration, c. 1941-2001 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
    • S. Edwards, M. Dolski, J. Buckley (eds.), D-Day in History and Memory: The Normandy Landings in International Remembrance and Commemoration (Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2014).
    • S. Edwards and M. Morris (eds.), The Legacy of Thomas Paine in the Transatlantic World (London: Routledge, 2018).
    • S. Edwards, M. Dolski, F. Sayer (eds.) Histories on Screen: The Past and Present in Anglo-American Cinema and Television (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).
    • S. Edwards, ‘World War II Memory Weaponized: The US, UK and Ukrainian Memory Diplomacy’, Journal of Applied History, 4:1-2 (2022), pp. 46-57.
    • S. Edwards, ‘‘A President’s “Pilgrimage of the Heart”: Place, Ancestry, and Woodrow Wilson’s 1918 Visit to Carlisle’ in Thomas Cobb and Olga Akroyd (eds.) Presidents and Place (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2023), pp. 103-122.
    • S. Edwards, ‘Towards a local history of interwar Anglo-American relations: Commemorating the Pilgrim Fathers on the Humber, c.1918-1925’, Britain and the World, 15:2 (2022), pp. 142-167.
    • S. Edwards, ‘A Great Englishman’: George Washington and Anglo-American Memory Diplomacy, c.1890-1925’, in S. Marsh and R. Hendershot (eds.), Culture Matters: Anglo-American relations and the intangibles of ‘specialness’ (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), pp. 158-188.