Cormac Kelly is a PhD Candidate in the Defence Studies Department under the supervision of Professor Greg Kennedy and Dr. Geraint Hughes. He holds an Honours BA (History) from the College of Wooster, where his senior thesis, built upon grant funded research, examined the role of internationalism and non-interventionism in the political ideology of the British Union of Fascists from 1932 to 1940. He holds an MA (Modern History) from King’s College London, where his dissertation analysed the British state’s treatment of pacifists in the Second World War.

His AHRC funded doctoral research studies the role of the State Department, between 1939 and 1946, in making the United States a hegemon in Europe. In those years, State Department officials shed their country’s historic commitment to European non-interventionism, attempting to shape the political leadership and boundaries of European states in the process, culminating in confrontation with the Soviet Union.

 

Research Interests:

• Diplomatic History

• Cold War Origins

• British fascism

• Memory politics

• The treatment of wartime dissent in liberal democracies

 

Thesis:

The United States State Department and the American Turn to Europe, 1939-1946

 

Supervisors:

Professor Greg Kennedy

Dr. Geraint Hughes