O'Brien, Phillips Payson 1963-

PERSONAL:

Born 1963.

CAREER:

University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, senior lecturer in history and director of the Scottish Centre for War Studies.

WRITINGS:

British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policy, 1900-1936, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1998.

(Editor) Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, Frank Cass (Portland, OR), 2001.

(Editor and author of introduction) The Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922, RoutledgeCurzon (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including Past and Present and the Journal of Strategic Studies.

SIDELIGHTS:

Phillips Payson O'Brien is a historian whose primary interest is military history. In his British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policy, 1900-1936, O'Brien explores the naval relations between Great Britain and the United States in the early twentieth century and the policies that formed the countries' respective naval efforts. He focuses on issues such as the British worldwide fleet at the turn of the century and the role U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt played in expanding the U.S. Navy, tracing that expansion back to Roosevelt's earlier appointment as Secretary of the Navy. "The larger picture into which O'Brien fits the contrast is the debate about the British decline and fall, naval and otherwise, and the similar rise of the United States in the twentieth century," wrote Sidney Aster in the English Historical Review. Aster went on to note: "His analysis … focuses on three phases—1900 to 1914, or thereabouts, 1918 to 1930, and 1930 to the later 1930s." In a review in the Historian, John Beeler reported that the author "provides a thoughtful and, in general, well-documented challenge to many … [perceived] assumptions about the fortunes of both navies during the period."

O'Brien also edited Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, and The Anglo- Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922. The former book presents fifteen articles that primarily focus on peacetime advances in naval technology and combat. Christopher Bell, writing in the Naval War College Review, commented: "Both the general reader and the specialist will find much of interest here." Reviewing The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922, Journal of Contemporary Asia contributor Geoffrey C. Gunn wrote: "A scholarly tome with weighty contributions this book succeeds in examining the Alliance from just about every angle."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

English Historical Review, November, 1999, Sidney Aster, review of British and American Naval Power: Politics and Policy, 1900-1936, p. 1364.

Historian, winter, 2000, John Beeler, review of British and American Naval Power, p. 471.

Journal of Contemporary Asia, August, 2004, Geoffrey C. Gunn, review of The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-1922, p. 400.

Naval War College Review, winter, 2004, Christoper Bell, review of Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, p. 157.