Dr Michael Reeve

Professional biography

I am a historian of modern Britain, with research interests related to the social and cultural history of war, consumption and empire. I am particularly interested in the endurance and resilience of civilians and service personnel in the context of war. This interest, in endurance and resilience among ordinary people, runs like a thread throughout my work in diverse areas of modern British and European History. 

My research on smoking culture, tobacco consumption and provision has focused on British military and civilian contexts during the First World War, particularly the use of tobacco as a mild narcotic in situations of combat and war strain, as well as its symbolism in codes of martial masculinity and patriotism.

I have also published on Victorian and Edwardian urban culture and the ‘coastal-urban’ context during the First World War, focusing on the north-east coast of England and the civilian experience of naval and aerial bombardment. My first monograph, Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War, was published in 2021 by Palgrave Macmillan.

My current research project focuses on the use of tobacco by military personnel and non-combatants in the context of modern wars involving Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the Crimean War, Second Boer War, and the First and Second World Wars.

Recent publications

Books:

Bombardment, Public Safety and Resilience in English Coastal Communities during the First World War (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).

Journal articles and book chapters:

‘Managing risk in the ‘danger zone’: Defensive infrastructure and public safety discourses on the north-east coast of England during the First World War’, Coastal Studies & Society, 1 (2-4) (2022), 180-208. Open Access.

‘‘Are we downhearted? NO!’: representing war damage and destruction following bombardment on the First World War ‘home front’’, Critical Military Studies, 7 (4) (2021), 397-417.

‘‘Something-to-smoke, at the right time, is a godsend’: voluntary action and the provision of cigarettes to soldiers during the First World War’, in Redcoats to Tommies: The Experience of the British Soldier from the Eighteenth Century, eds. Kevin Linch and Matthew Lord (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2021), 120-48.

‘‘An Empire Dock’: Place Promotion and the Local Acculturation of Imperial Discourse in ‘Britain’s Third Port’’, Northern History, 58 (1) (2021), 129-50. 

I am a member of the module team for the Level 1 module Revolutions (A113) and the Level 3 module Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity (A327). I am also an Associate Lecturer on the Level 1 module Discovering the arts and humanities (A111), with my teaching based in the Yorkshire region.

2023: I appeared on the Ridings of Yorkshire Society podcast, ROYSCast, in April, where I discussed my recent work on coastal bombardment during the First World War, in addition to my new project on tobacco and smoking in the context of war in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Listen to the episode here.

2021: I worked as a historical consultant and interviewee on the Channel 4 documentary series Britain by Beach (presented by Anita Rani), utilising my research into the naval bombardment of Scarborough in December 1914. 

2019: I appeared on the ‘Mentioned in Dispatches’ podcast, presented by Dr Tom Thorpe of the Western Front Association. 

2017-19: I worked on public engagement and heritage research projects at the Heugh Battery Museum in Hartlepool (2018-19) and the North of England Civic Trust (now Cultura Trust) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (2017). 

I have been a member of the committee of History Lab Plus since 2020. HL+ is a network for Early Career Historians based at the Institute of Historical Research. From 2017-20, I was web editor and social media officer at the Society for the Study of Labour History (incl. membership of the Executive Committee). 

In 2017, I co-edited a special issue of the International Journal of Regional and Local History with Dr Andrew McTominey (Leeds Beckett University) on northern identity, history and heritage. More information here.

I have been awarded the following prizes for research:

• Gordon Forster Essay Prize 2020 (awarded by the Northern History journal).
• European Association for Urban History, Postgraduate Paper Prize, runner-up (bi-annual conference, Rome, 2018). 
• Beresford Award, Yorkshire History Prize 2016 (awarded by the Yorkshire Society). 

My research and professional development has been funded by grants and awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Society for the Study of Labour History, the Big Lottery Fund and the University of Louvain (Historial de la Grande Guerre). 

I am a member of the following professional networks and learned societies:

British Society for the History of Science
Coastal History Network
Economic History Society
European Association for Urban History
Global Tobacco History Network
Interdisciplinary Tobacco History Network
International Maritime History Association
International Society for First World War Studies
Military Welfare History Network