Ian Beckett

Professor Beckett is Visiting Professor in Military History at Kent University. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is Chairman of the Council of the Army Records Society.

Professor Beckett has previously held chairs at the universities of Luton and Northampton, as well as having been Major General Matthew C Horner Professor of Military Theory at the US Marine Corps University and Visiting Professor of Strategy at the US Naval War College.

Ian Beckett is also curator of the Buckinghamshire Military Museum Trust, established in 1985 to preserve the records and artefacts of the auxiliary forces of the historic county of Buckinghamshire (pre-1974 boundaries) including the Royal Bucks King's Own Militia, Royal Bucks Hussars and Royal Bucks Yeomanry, Bucks Volunteers and Rifle Volunteers, Bucks Battalions of the Territorial Force and Territorial Army, the Bucks Volunteer Training Corps and the Bucks Home Guard.

He is known internationally for his work on the Great War, the British army, and modern counter-insurgency. His many publications include Territorials: A Century of Service (2008), The Great War, 1914-1918 (2nd edn., 2007), The Victorians at War (2003), The First World War: The Essential Guide to Sources in the UK National Archives (2002), Modern Insurgencies and Counter-insurgencies (2001), and The Amateur Military Tradition, 1558-1945 (1991).