Archaeology and History

Photo of Professor Richard Overy

Professor Richard Overy

Honorary Professor

r.overy@exeter.ac.uk

Overview

Research interests include the history of the Hitler and Stalin dictatorships, the Second World War, air power in the twentieth century, German history from c 1900. Research supervision can be offered in all these areas and in related themes and subjects.

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Research

Research interests have included many aspects of the history of the Third Reich and the Second World War and, more recently, of Stalin's Soviet Union and the Soviet war effort. He is currently working on a book which explores the development of a morbid culture in inter-war and wartime Europe and examines the links between that culture and the nature of war, civil war and genocide. He is currently preparing a research project on bombing and its impact during the Second World War which will look comparatively at the experience of bombed communities in Britain, France, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union. He is also continuing research on aspects of the German economy under Hitler.

He was awarded a one-year fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust in 2010 for his bombing book project, and organised the conference 'Bombing, States and Peoples' in 2009.

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Supervision

Research supervision can be offered generally in the field of the Hitler and Stalin dictatorships, the Second World War (causes, course and consequences - any aspect of its history), air power history, German history from c.1900.

Research students

Recently supervised theses include: a study of German/British Catholic anti-Semitism; exploitation of Soviet manpower on the eastern front; German conservative intellectuals in 1920s Germany; eco-fascism in Britain and Germany. Current supervision at Exeter includes: a study of the Soviet-German friendship society.

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2018 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 1992 | 1989 | 1988 | 1984 | 1980 | 1979 | 1978 | 1975 | 1973 |

2018

  • Overy R. (2018) Bruce Lockhart, British Political Warfare and Occupied Europe, Exile in London: The Experience of Czechoslovakia and Other Occupied Nations 1939-1945, Charles University, Prague, 200-217.
  • Overy R. (2018) The German Home Front under the Bombs, A Companion to Nazi Germany, Wiley-Blackwell, 231-246.
  • Overy R. (2018) The bombing of British cities in the Second World War, STORIA URBANA, no. 158, pages 11-33, DOI:10.3280/su2018-158002. [PDF]
  • Overy R. (2018) The Birth of the RAF, 1918 The World’s First Air Force, Penguin UK.

2016

  • Overy R. (2016) 'The Chap with the Closest Tabs': Trevor-Roper and the Hunt for Hitler, Hugh Trevor-Roper: The Historian, I. B. Tauris, 192-206.
  • Overy R. (2016) Aircraft and the Arms Race between the Two World Wars, Arms Races in International Politics, Oxford University Press, 115-134.
  • Overy R. (2016) Constructing Space for Dissent in War: The Bombing Restriction Committee, 1941–1945, The English Historical Review, volume 131, no. 550, pages 596-622, DOI:10.1093/ehr/cew172. [PDF]

2015

  • Overy R. (2015) 'Why we bomb you': liberal war-making and moral relativism in the RAF bomber offensive, Liberal Wars: Anglo-American strategy, ideology and practice, Routledge, 22-37.
  • Overy R. (2015) Making and Breaking Morale: British Political Warfare and Bomber Command in the Second World War:, Twentieth Century British History, volume 26, no. 3, pages 370-399, DOI:10.1093/tcbh/hwv023. [PDF]
  • Overy RJ. (2015) Front Line II: Civilians at War, The Oxford Illustrated History of World War Two, Oxford University Press, 258-292.
  • Overy RJ. (2015) Economies in Total War, The Oxford Illustrated History of World War Two, Oxford University Press, 232-257.
  • Overy RJ. (2015) The German Wars, The Oxford Illustrated History of World War Two, Oxford University Press, 110-134.
  • Overy R. (2015) The Oxford Illustrated History of World War Two, Oxford University Press.

2014

  • Overy R. (2014) A History of War in 100 Battles, HarperCollins UK.
  • Overy RJ. (2014) "Instructive for the Future": The Interrogation of the Major War Criminals in Germany, 1945, Interrogation in War and Conflict: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Analysis, Routledge, 93-109.
  • Overy RJ. (2014) "Ordinary Men," Extraordinary Circumstances: Historians, Social Psychology, and the Holocaust', Journal of Social Issues, volume 70, no. 3, pages 515-530.

2013

  • Overy RJ. (2013) The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945, Allen Lane.

2012

  • Overy RJ. (2012) The Weak Link? The Perception of the German Working Class by RAF Bomber Command, 1940-1945, Labour History Review, volume 77, no. 1, pages 1-33.

2011

  • Overy RJ. (2011) Economics and the Origins of the Second World War, The Origins of the Second World War: An International Perspective, Continuum, 482-506.

2010

  • Overy RJ. (2010) The Air War in Europe, 1939-1945, A History of Air Warfare, Potomac Books, 27-52.
  • Overy RJ. (2010) Thhe Third Reich: A Chronicle, Quercus.

2009

  • Overy RJ. (2009) The Morbid Age: Britain between the Wars, Allen Lane.

2008

  • Overy RJ. (2008) Apocalyptic Fears: Bombing and Popular Anxiety in Inter-War Britain, S-Nodi: Public and Private in Contemporary History, volume 1, no. 2.
  • Overy RJ. (2008) Eugenics, Sex and the State: An Afterword, Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, volume 39, pages 270-272.

2006

  • Overy RJ. (2006) The Second World War: A Barbarous Conflict?, The Barbarisation of Warfare, Hurst & Co.

2005

  • Overy RJ. (2005) Allied Bombing and the Destruction of German Cities, A World at Total War: Global Conflict and the Politics of Destruction 1937-1945, Cambridge University Press, 277-295.

2004

  • Overy RJ, Ogilvie S. (2004) Germany: A New Social and Economic History Volume 3: Since 1800, Arnold.
  • Overy RJ. (2004) Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia, Allen Lane.
  • Overy RJ, Ogilvie S. (2004) State and Economy in Germany in the Twentieth Century, Germany: a Mew Social and Economic History, Arnold.
  • Overy RJ. (2004) Times History of the World, Times Books.

2003

2002

  • Overy RJ. (2002) Business in the Grossraumwirtschaft: Eastern Europe 1938-1945, Enterprise in the Period of Fascism in Europe, Ashgate, 151-177.

2001

  • Overy RJ. (2001) Bread, butter and canons - The food market in Germany under Hitler, JOURNAL OF MODERN HISTORY, volume 73, no. 1, pages 211-212, DOI:10.1086/319915. [PDF]
  • Overy RJ. (2001) Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945, Viking.
  • Overy RJ. (2001) Interrogations: the Nazi Elite in Allied Hands.
  • Overy RJ. (2001) The German Economy 1919-1939, Weimar and Nazi Germany: Continuities and Discontinuities, Pearson Education.

1992

1989

  • OVERY RJ. (1989) DEBATE - GERMANY, DOMESTIC CRISIS AND WAR IN 1939 - REPLY, PAST & PRESENT, no. 122, pages 221-240. [PDF]

1988

  • OVERY RJ. (1988) MOBILIZATION FOR TOTAL WAR IN GERMANY 1939-1941, ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW, volume 103, no. 408, pages 613-639. [PDF]
  • OVERY RJ. (1988) BLITZKRIEGWIRTSCHAFT - FINANCIAL POLICY, LIVING STANDARDS AND LABOR UTILIZATION IN GERMANY 1939-1942, VIERTELJAHRSHEFTE FUR ZEITGESCHICHTE, volume 36, no. 3, pages 379-435. [PDF]

1984

1980

  • OVERY RJ. (1980) HITLER AND AIR STRATEGY, JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY, volume 15, no. 3, pages 405-421, DOI:10.1177/002200948001500302. [PDF]

1979

  • OVERY RJ. (1979) SOLDIERS OF DESTRUCTION - SYDNOR,CW, HISTORICAL JOURNAL, volume 22, no. 2, pages 493-503. [PDF]
  • OVERY RJ. (1979) GERMAN MOTORISIERUNG AND REARMAMENT - REPLY, ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, volume 32, no. 1, pages 107-113. [PDF]

1978

1975

1973

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Biography

Richard Overy (b. 1947) was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. He taught at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979 at Queens' College and from 1976-79 as a University Assistant Lecturer. From 1980 to 2004 he taught at King's College, London where he was made professor of Modern History in 1994. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (1977), Fellow of the British Academy (2000) and Fellow of King's College (2003). In 2001 he was awarded the Samuel Elliot Morison Prize of the Society for Military History for his contribution to the history of warfare. In September 2004 he took up appointment as Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

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More information

Regular contributor to radio and television. Documentary series adviser on The Road to War (1989), Russia's War (1996), The People's Century (1994). Currently historical adviser for a German film on the bombing of Dresden. Undertakes international TV consultancy work on Hitler and World War Two. 

Team leader in European Science Foundation Programme on 'National Socialist and Fascist Occupation in Europe 1939-1945', team 3 on 'Economics'

Currently planning a major conference on bombing in the Second World War to be held at the University of Exeter in September 2007.

He is a member of the Peer Review College of the AHRC, reviews grants for the Leverhulme Trust, and is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Editor of The Times History of the World. 

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