Dr Rachel Blackman-Rogers is a Lecturer at the Defence Studies Department. She is based at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in Shrivenham. She is an Advance HE Fellow and is a member of the editorial board for Liverpool University Press, Research in Maritime Series. She is also a member of the Corbett Seapower Centre, and a presenter and contributor to the podcast series, The Napoleonic Quarterly, https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-napoleonic=quarterly/

She is currently the academic Programme Director for the Royal Navy’s PME programmes at the Defence Academy and has designed and led an MA module examining the relationship between the military and the media.

She obtained her PhD from KCL, and is planning to use her thesis, titled “Facing Unlimited War: Strategic Evolution and Cultural Transformation, 1795-1798,” as the foundation for a book examining the use of seapower during unlimited war and the historical use of levers of power.

Qualifications

• PhD in Naval History, King’s College London (2023)
• MA in History of War, King’s College London (2015)

Research Interests

• Maritime strategic thinking
• Limited and unlimited war
• Strategic culture
• Maritime identity
• The High North
• Eighteenth century maritime war
• The role of media during war

Rachel’s research interests are broadly focused on maritime strategic thinking, primarily during the eighteenth century, but also in a contemporary, post second world war context as well. She is currently interested in the reactivation of the High North, grey-zone maritime activities and contested maritime lines of communication. She is also examining the relationship between the media and war, including the impact of social media on the spectrum of war.

Publications

Research Article

• Murphy, Hugh and Blackman-Rogers, Rachel (2022) “Greenfield shipyards and modernisation in the British Shipbuilding industry and elsewhere, 1900-1977,” The Mariner’s Mirror, Vol. 108, 2, Article ID: RMIR 2009246, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.2022.2009246 

Book Review

• James Davey. “Tempest: The Royal Navy and the Age of Revolutions,” Yale University Press, 2023. pp. 448. $35.00 (cloth)., Journal of British Studies! at https://doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2025.10093.

PURE Profile