U.S. Army, Professional Military Education, Professionalization, American Civil War
Ben Brands, a PhD candidate in History, specializes in the history of the United States Army in the nineteenth century. He received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary in 2004 and his M.A. from George Mason University in 2015. From 2015 to 2017 he served as an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY, where he taught courses on Military History and the American Civil War. He is currently working on his dissertation, tentatively titled "Natural Genius vs. Safe Leadership: the Debate over Professional Military Education in the United States Army, 1880-1903." He has also studied the use of Virtual Reality in Higher Education, and prior to attending George Mason served as an Infantry Officer in the United States Army for twelve years. From 2018 to 2019 he held the L. Claire Kincannon Internship at the George Mason University Libraries' Special Collections Research Center. Ben also works at the U.S. Army's Center of Military History, where he is writing the official history of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Dissertation, tentatively titled "Natural Genius vs. Safe Leadership: the Debate over Professional Military Education in the United States Army, 1880-1903."
2018/2019 L. Claire Kincannon Internship, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries, Fairfax, VA.
2016 General Omar N. Bradley Historical Research Fellow, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle PA.
HI301: History of the Military Art to 1900 (USMA)
HI302: History of the Military Art from 1900 (USMA)
HI395: History of the American Civil War (USMA)
HI498: Senior Colloquium (USMA)
HI499: Senior Thesis (USMA)
HST318: American Military History, 1865-present (Oregon State University) (Online)
BA, The College of William and Mary, 2004
MA, George Mason University, 2015
PhD (abd), George Mason University, expected 2020