Geoffrey Parker (historian)

Noel Geoffrey Parker FRHistS FBA (born 25 December 1943) is an English historian specialising in the history of Western Europe, Spain, and warfare during the early modern era. His best known book is The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800, first published by Cambridge University Press in 1988.

He holds his BA, MA, PhD, and LittD degrees from Cambridge University where he studied under the historian Sir John Elliott.

Parker has taught at the University of Illinois, the University of St Andrews, and Yale University. He is currently the Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at the Ohio State University.

Parker was a consultant and main contributor on the BBC series, Armada: 12 Days to Save England.

Honours[]

Parker is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). He is a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE).

In 2014, Parker was awarded the British Academy Medal for his book Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century.^[1]

Amongst the foreign honours he holds, he is a member of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise and was granted the Great Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Spanish government. He has received honorary doctorates from the Catholic University of Brussels (Belgium) and the University of Burgos (Spain). He is also a corresponding member of the Spanish Real Academia de la Historia (since 1987),^[2] and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2005.^[3] In 2012 he was awarded the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for History by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences for his outstanding scholarship on the social, political and military history of Europe between 1500 and 1650, in particular Spain, Philip II, and the Dutch Revolt; for his contribution to military history in general; and for his research on the role of climate in world history.^[4]

In 1999, he was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement given by the Society for Military History.^[5]

Major works[]

• Guide to the Archives of the Spanish Institutions in or concerned with the Netherlands (1556–1706). Brussels, 1971. (Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique, numéro spécial 3).
• The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries' Wars. Cambridge University Press, 1972 (2nd ed. 2004).
• "Military Revolution, 1560–1660: A Myth?" The Journal of Modern History 48, no. 2 (June 1976): 195–214.
• The Dutch Revolt. London: Allen Lane, 1977.^[6]
• (with Angela Parker) European Soldiers, 1550–1650. Cambridge University Press, 1977.
• Philip II. Boston: Little, Brown, 1978.^[7]
• (Joint editor) The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. London: Routledge, 1978 (2nd ed. 1997).
• Europe in Crisis, 1598–1648. Cornell University Press, 1979 (2nd ed. 2001).
• Spain and the Netherlands: Ten Studies. Short Hills: Enslow Publishers, 1979.
• (Editor) The Thirty Years' War. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984.
• Western Geopolitical Thought in the Twentieth Century. London: Croom Helm, 1985.
• (With Colin Martin) The Spanish Armada. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988.
• "Why the Armada Failed." The Quarterly Journal of Military History 1, no. 1 (Autumn 1988).
• Spain and the Netherlands, 1559–1659. Ten Studies, 2nd ed. Fontana, 1990.
• (Joint editor) The Times History of the World, 3rd ed. London, 1995.
• The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare: The Triumph of the West. Cambridge University Press, 1995 (rev. 2008)
• The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge University Press, 1988 (rev. ed. 1996).
• (co-written with Robert Cowley) The Reader's Companion to Military History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
• The Grand Strategy of Philip II. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
• Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe. London: Allen Lane, 2002.
• (Editor) The Cambridge History of Warfare. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005 (rev. ed. 2020)
• Felipe II: La biografía definitiva. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 2010.
• Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013.
• Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014.^[8]
• Emperor: A New Life of Charles V. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019.^[9] ISBN 9780300196528 OCLC 1112998062

See also[]

• Military Revolution

References[]

External links[]

• University Biography Page
• Course Pages
• Parker, Geoffrey. "Conscience and power: Philip II of Spain, history and legend." Audio of lecture. 2 February 1980.
• Audio of Geoffrey Parker's lecture "Climate and Catastrophe: The World Crisis of the 17th Century" at the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities 19 April 2007.
• KNAW Video Interview with Geoffrey Parker on the occasion of the awarding of the Heineken Prize