Professor Adrian O'Sullivan DLitt et Phil FRHistS

Stand with Ukraine and call for the immediate imposition of a NATO no-fly zone throughout Ukrainian air space. Decision-makers in the West must take their lead from Zelenskyy: he is the one who knows —…

I’m finished with Iraq now. Turkey beckons. So, as a final appearance, I’m giving an Iraq paper for the Second World War Research Group North America (SWWRGNA) on Friday 19 February 2022. Starring of course…

With effect from 1 August 2021, I have been awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Intelligence History at Bishop Grosseteste University (Lincoln, UK). This is a splendid honour, and I look forward to exploring…

My first post-pandemic research trip to the UK, Ireland, and Germany (May–June 2022) is already at the planning stage. Sadly, it will also be my last ocean voyage by cargo freighter (Halifax–Liverpool), as I shall…

The Baghdad Set (2019) has been nominated for the American Political Science Association’s International Security Section Book Award. Fingers crossed!

As part of the North American Society of Intelligence Historians (NASIH) series of Virtual Brown Bag talks, Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall and I have been invited to present a Zoom talk on Tuesday 1 September 2020…

My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by disease or loss during the current pandemic. Fortunately, as long as I remain unscathed as a self-isolating ‘vulnerable person’ (79 yrs, history of asthma, pneumonia,…

Despite my total debunking of a KGB assassination myth in my 2015 book on Persia, Espionage and Counterintelligence, Putin’s hack(er)s are today making a big fuss over the death of the “heroic spy” who “foiled”…

Oops! There’s one major error on page 185 of The Baghdad Set, which needs correcting. Franz von Papen was of course a former Chancellor of Germany (not Austria). A corresponding correction is required in the…

Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall (Bishop Grosseteste University) and I have just received a Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries supporting our pilot research project exploring ‘SOE Spy Clothing: Dress & Deception during the Second…

‘The Baghdad Set’ is now in production with Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-15182-9. Due out in April 2019.

I have been invited back to lecture again at Bishop Grosseteste University on 9 May 2019 at 1800 hrs. My subject will be Secret Intelligence and Security Operations in Iraq during the Second World War.…

During the spring, I will be examining various records at The National Archives (Kew), the Bundesarchiv (Berlin-Lichterfelde), and the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (Freiburg im Breisgau). The aim is to collect Second World War geohistorical data for further…

Result! ‘The Baghdad Set’ has been commissioned by Palgrave Macmillan. Now in pre-production. Should be out in the early spring. Stay tuned! 

Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall and I have begun work on our next joint project: a study of the wives and partners of Allied and Axis espionage operatives during the Second World War, which we hope to…

Unaffiliated = unfunded. I operate my HISTINT and GEOHISTINT research projects as an independent nonprofit enterprise. But there are overheads; research is expensive. Even if I stay at home instead of working in the great…

A new article on ‘Landscapes of Intelligence in the Third Reich: Visualising Abwehr Operations and “Covert Space” during the Second World War’, co-authored with Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall of Bishop Grosseteste University, is nearing completion and should…

I was a war baby, born during the Blitz in the heart of the industrial midlands of Great Britain, raised on rations and rare black-market treats. I grew up amidst the sounds and sights of…

Towards the end of the final episode of the final series of Detectorists, Lance says to Andy: ‘Metal detecting is the closest you can get to time travel. When you found that whistle and blew…

The Geohistorical Intelligence Project (GEOHISTINT) is my initiative to find ways of enhancing intelligence historiography by encouraging intelligence specialists and historians to embrace the 21st-century ‘spatial turn’ that has touched the methodology of many nonhistorical…