Michael Fitzpatrick, PhD
“Nevertheless, We Press On!”
Historian and Scholar of the Modern United States, Europe, and East Asia
War, Society, and Alliance Politics Across the Cold War World
Historian and Scholar of the Modern United States, Europe, and East Asia
Welcome. I am a historian of the modern United States, Europe, and East Asia, currently a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Partner Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where my research supports the mission of accounting for America's missing service members. I use military institutions as a lens on the societies that build them. My first book, The Perpetual Soup, is under contract with De Gruyter-Brill and argues that West Germany actively shaped American military thought after the Vietnam War. My second, The Tiger Front, recovers South Korea's substantial and understudied role in the Vietnam War. I have taught undergraduate and graduate courses at UNC-Chapel Hill and Purdue University Fort Wayne, and I write for practitioner audiences as well as academic ones. You will find my research, teaching, and CV on the pages that follow.
With the DPAA
As a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Partner, I conduct historical research in support of the Agency's mission provide the fullest possible accounting for the more than 80,000 Americans still missing from past conflicts. I reconstruct unit movements, engagements from primary records, losses, and collect geospatial data utilizing a wide spectrum of archival and non-archival documents. This research is translated into research products for use by both an interdisciplinary team of researchers and investigators, as well as for the families and general public. Much of my current work concerns the Korean War, which includes both traditional historical research as well as work with geospatial datasets in ArcGIS.
If you want to read my CV:
If you’d like to sample my research:
Would you like to know more about my ongoing projects?
For professional inquiries:
Work for the DPAA is a unique opportunity and presents research challenges unlike any I have experienced in any other scholarly pursuit. Its emphasis on accuracy, timeliness, and broad accessibility require a unique approach to research. But beyond this, the mission of the DPAA is a sacrosanct obligation which has been a privledge to support.
