Timothy S. Wolters

History of Technology, Maritime/Naval History, Military Historiography

Contact

Dept:History
Email:wolters@iastate.edu
Office:619 Ross
527 Farm House Ln.
Ames IA
50011-1054
Phone:515-294-4672

Bio

My research focuses on maritime and naval history, the global history of technology, and military historiography.  Lengthy scholarly articles have appeared in the academic journals Enterprise and Society, the Journal of Military History (2), and Technology and Culture.  Johns Hopkins University Press published my first book, titled Information at Sea:  Shipboard Command & Control in the U.S. Navy, from Mobile Bay to Okinawa (2013), and my most recent major publication is “Harvey A. DeWeerd and the Dawn of Academic Military History in the United States” (Journal of Military History, January 2021, pp. 95-133).  Other notable projects include an essay, “Science, Technology, and American Military History,” scheduled to appear in the Oxford Handbook of American Military History (projected publication date, late 2023), and an article manuscript on the benefits and pitfalls of digital history as revealed through analysis of world’s oldest extant nautical charts (typically dated to the thirteenth century).  I am also working on a book that investigates the first marine radio navigation system in the United States, situating it within the broader contexts of both global maritime history and technological failure.