Staff Profile
Dr Graeme Callister
Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies
I am Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies, specialising in conflict, combat, and civil-military relations since the early modern period, with an especial focus on the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I joined York St John University in 2014, having completed my PhD at the University of York with a thesis examining policy and public opinion in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
My publications include 'War, Public Opinion and Policy in Britain, France and the Netherlands, 1785 to 1815' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 'Battle: Understanding Conflict from Hastings to Helmand' (Pen and Sword, 2022), and a number of articles in internationally recognised journals. In 2022 I was awarded the British Commission for Military History's Sir Michael Howard prize.
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – g.callister@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 269
- Research - View my work in RaY
Teaching
My teaching focuses primarily on Britain and Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Current modules include:
- War and Society
- European Revolutions
- The Face of Battle
- A United Kingdom? Britain 1707 to 1837
- European History, 1750 to 1850 (The Napoleonic Wars)
- Britain at War, c.1800 to 1815
Research
My primary research interests lie in Europe of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. My PhD thesis looked at the interaction of public opinion and foreign policy in Britain, France, and the Netherlands during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, and I have an interest in questions of power, political culture, and diplomatic relations in the 1700s and 1800s. I also have an interest in civil-military relations since the early modern period, and have published on military conscription in apartheid South Africa and Napoleonic France. I am currently researching experiences of conflict and warfare in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with a focus on the period of the Napoleonic Wars.
I would welcome enquiries from anyone interested in postgraduate research in conflict, diplomacy and the experience of war in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially in the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Publications
Books
War, Public Opinion and Policy in Britain, France and the Netherlands, 1785-1815 (Cham: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017)
Forthcoming:
Battle: Understanding Conflict from Hastings to Helmand (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2022), co-authored
Waterloo: the Attack of I Corps (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2023)
Napoleon’s Conscripts (Warwick: Helion Books, 2025)
Articles
‘Napoleon and the Netherlands: a Country Misunderstood’, Napoleonica. The Journal, 2:2 (December 2022), 75-95 DOI: 10.3917/napoj.002.0075
‘Britain’s Continental Connection and the Peace of Amiens: a Reassessment’, International History Review, 44:3 (2022), 461-77 DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2021.1972027
‘Public Opinion, National Character, and the Failed British Defence of the Netherlands, 1793-95’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 32:4 (December 2021), 627-47 DOI: 10.1080/09592296.2021.1996706
‘Napoleonic Conscription in Indre-et-Loire’, British Journal for Military History, 7:3 (November 2021), 2-19. DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v7i3.1566 Winner of the Sir Michael Howard Prize 2021
‘Using Official Correspondence for Primary Research’, SAGE/Adam Matthews Digital Research Methods for Primary Sources (2021), https://doi.org/10.47594/RMPS_0111
‘Britain’s Not-so-Grand Strategy: The Projected Expedition Against the Texel, 1796’, Academia Letters (September 2021), DOI: 10.20935/AL3049
‘The City and the Revolutionary Dutch Nation, 1780-1800’, Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies, 36:3 (November 2012), 228-43. DOI: 10.1179/0309656412Z.00000000017
‘Patriotic Duty or Resented Imposition? Public Reactions to Military Conscription in White South Africa, 1952-1972’, Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, 35:1 (July 2007), 46-67. DOI: 10.5787/35-1-29
I have also produced magazine articles for Battlefield and Military History Now.
Conference papers and public lectures (recent):
‘The Military Experience in the Age of Napoleon’, at Symposium in Honour of Christopher Duffy, National Army Museum, London (and online), 3 June 2023
Public lecture: ‘Waterloo Men: Anecdotes and Analysis from the French Regimental Registers’, Napoleonic and Revolutionary War Graves Charity Lecture Series (online), 16 April 2023
Keynote lecture: ‘Clash of Arms: the Soldier’s Experience of Battle from Hastings to Helmand’, Battlefields Trust AGM, National Civil War Centre, Newark, 25 March 2023 (with Dr Rachael Whitbread).
Public lecture: ‘History of Battle: Understanding Conflict from Hastings to Helmand’, New York Military Affairs Symposium (online), 3 March 2023.
‘Victory, Defeat, and the Experience of Battle in the Napoleonic Wars’, IHR Military History Seminar, London (and online), 31 January 2023
‘Napoleonic Conscription: Evasion, Avoidance, and the Building of the French State’, at Napoleon in War and Peace Conference, National Army Museum, London (and online), 9-10 September 2022
Professional activities
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
I am currently co-convening editor of 'Battalia', the online journal of the Battlefields Trust, and co-chair of the Yorkshire region.
