Paul Douglas Lockhart is Professor of History at Wright State, where he has taught since earning his Ph.D. at Purdue in 1989. At Purdue, Lockhart studied European military history with the renowned Napoleonic historian Gunther E. Rothenberg, and early modern European history with Charles W. Ingrao and Linda Levy Peck. He has held fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American-Scandinavian Foundation; his external appointments include a stint as Visiting Researcher/Visiting Lecturer (gæsteforsker/gæstelektor) at Syddansk Universitet, Odense, Denmark, and as National Endowment for the Humanities Visiting Distinguished Professor at SUNY/Potsdam College. Wright State awarded Lockhart the title of Brage Golding Distinguished Professor of Research, a three-year position, in 2014-17; in 2022, he won the Trustees Award for Faculty Excellence, Wright State's highest award for academic achievement. The Ohio Academy of History selected him as Distinguished Historian for 2020-21. In 2021, he was elected to membership in Det Kongelige Danske Selskab for Fædrelandets Historie (The Royal Society for Danish History) for his contributions to the study of Danish history.

 

Lockhart's research interests include the history of the Oldenburg dynastic state (Denmark, Norway, Scania, Iceland, Greenland, Schleswig-Holstein) at the time of the Protestant Reformation, plus the history of the art of war and of military technology, especially firearms. Among his seven single-author books are Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark's Role in the Wars of Religion (Brill, 2004), Denmark, 1513-1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy (Oxford UP, 2007), and The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (HarperCollins, 2008). His most recent book is Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare (Basic, 2021).