John Hattendorf - Civilian Academic Career

Civilian Academic Career

Hattendorf has spent most of his civilian academic career at the United States Naval War College, returning there as a civilian faculty member in 1977. He taught Strategy and Policy for a number of years. From 1988 to 2003, he directed the United States Naval War College's Advanced Research Department. In 2003, Hattendorf became the first chairman of the Naval War College's newly established Maritime History Department, where he oversees its research section and is the director of the Naval War College Museum. He has identified four primary audiences for the U.S. Navy's maritime history programs: sailors, Navy leaders, government policymakers, and the American people."The Uses of Maritime History in and for the Navy," Naval War College Rreview, (April 2003)

As a civilian scholar, he has been visiting professor of history at the National University of Singapore and at the German Armed Forces Military History Research Office, and a visiting Fellow at Oxford University. He has been an adjunct professor at the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime History since 1990 and served as its director from 1996 to 2001.

He served on the Secretary of the Navy's Advisory Subcommittee on Naval History from 2004 through 2008, serving as chairman, 2006–2008. He was a member of the Board of Advisors to the Canadian Forces College at Toronto.

For four years from 2003 through 2007, Hattendorf served as President of the North American Society for Oceanic History and, in that role, headed the U.S. delegation to the International Commission for Maritime History. He served as one of the commission's vice-presidents, 2005–2009.

He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and has served as a member of council and vice-president of the Hakluyt Society (UK), and was the founding president of the American Friends of the Hakluyt Society.. He has been a member of Council of the Navy Records Society. Since 1989, he has been co-chair of the publications committee of the Newport Historical Society and since 2005, historian of Trinity Episcopal Church and a member of the Board of Scholars for the American Revolution Center at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.