About Andrew Lambert

Born 31 December 1956 in Norfolk. Attended Hamond’s Grammar School, Swaffham, and then studied for his degree in law at City of London Polytechnic. Read for an MA and PhD in naval history at King’s College, London in the War Studies Department. Between 1983 and 1987 he was a lecturer in international history at Bristol Polytechnic (now Bristol West of England University) and moved to become a consultant in the department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, where he stayed until 1989. 1989-1991 he was a senior lecturer in war studies at RMA Sandhurst, and since 1996 has been based in the War Studies department at King’s College London, initially senior lecturer, then professor of naval history, and since 2001 Laughton Professor of Naval History, and Director of the Laughton Naval History Research Unit. He was Hon. Secretary of the Naval Records Society 1996-2005 and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Lambert’s work focuses on the naval and strategic history of the British Empire between the Napoleonic wars and the mid-twentieth century, addressing such topics as the development of naval historical writing, technology, policy-making, deterrence, historiography and conflict. He lectures in Australia, Canada, Finland, Denmark Russia and the USA. He worked on television for the BBC, writing and presenting the series War at Sea. In 2014 he was awarded the Anderson Medal by the Society for Nautical Research for his book on the war of 1812, The Challenge: Britain Against America in the Naval War of 1812, (Faber and Faber, 2012).

His publications include

• Battleships in Transition: the Creation of the Steam Battlefleet, 1815-60 (Conway Maritime Press 1984).
• Warrior: the world’s first ironclad, then and now (Conway Maritime Press, 1987).
• The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853-56 (Manchester University Press, 1990).
• The Last Sailing Battlefleet: Maintaining Naval Mastery 1815-50 (Conway Maritime Press, 1991).
• The Foundations of Naval History: Sir John Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession (Chatham Publishing 1998),
• War at Sea in the Age of Sail (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000).
• The Letters and Papers of Sir John Knox Laughton, 1830-1915 (Navy Records Society, 2002).
• Nelson: Britannia’s God of War (Faber and Faber, 2004).
• Admirals: The Naval Commanders who made Britain Great (Faber and Faber, 2008).
• Franklin: Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation (Faber and Faber, 2010).
• The Challenge: Britain against America in the NavalWwar of 1812 (Faber and Faber 2012).