Robert Cowley is an American military historian, who writes on topics in American and European

military history Military history is the study of War, armed conflict in the Human history, history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to Politics, local and international relationship ...

ranging from the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

through

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He has held several senior positions in book and magazine publishing and is the founding editor of the award-winning
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History
'; Cowley has also written extensively and edited three collections of

essay An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

s in

counterfactual history Counterfactual history (also virtual history) is a form of historiography that attempts to answer the ''wikt:what if, What if?'' questions that arise from counterfactuals, counterfactual conditions. Counterfactual history seeks by "conjecturing ...

known as '' What If?'' As part of his research he has traveled the entire length of the Western Front, from the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

to the Swiss border.

Early life and education

Cowley is the son of prominent writer and literary critic Malcolm Cowley and Muriel Mauer. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, graduating in 1952. Thereafter, he earned an A.B. degree in history in 1956 from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

in Massachusetts.

Personal life

He was married to Blair Cowley; they later divorced and she remarried to artist Paul Resika. They had two daughters, Elizabeth and Miranda. Miranda Cowley, is married to film producer and director Bruno Heller, son of screenwriter Lukas Heller and grandson of political philosopher Hermann Heller. Cowley was married to Susan Cheever, daughter of novelist John Cheever from 1967 to 1975. He married Edith Lorillard, daughter of Elaine Lorillard, who founded the Newport Jazz Festival, in 1978. They have two daughters, Olivia Wassenaar and Savannah Cowley.

Works

* ''1918: Gamble for Victory. The Greatest Attack of World War I'', by Robert Cowley, New York, Macmillan Books, 1964. * ''Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age'', by Malcolm Cowley and Robert Cowley, New York, Scribner, 1966. * ''The Rulers of Britain'', by Robert Cowley, New York, Stonehenge Press, 1982, . * ''Experience of War'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Random House, 1993, * ''The Reader's Companion to Military History'', by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1996, * ''No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II'', edited by Robert Cowley, New York, Putnam, 2001, * ''With My Face to the Enemy: Perspectives on the Civil War'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Putnam, 2001, * ''West Point: Two Centuries of Honor and Tradition'', edited by Robert Cowley and Thomas Guinzburg, New York: Warner Books, 2002. * ''The Great War: Perspectives on the First World War'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Random House, 2003, * ''The Cold War'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Random House, 2006, * '' What If? The World’s Most Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Putnam, 1999, * '' What If? 2 Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Putnam, 2001, * '' What Ifs? of American History'', ed. Robert Cowley, New York, Putnam, 2003,

References

External links

Random House Author Spotlight
William H. Honan, ''The New York Times'', December 19, 1988.
''Generals, Battlefields, and What Raleigh Said''
Richard Bernstein, ''The New York Times'', December 18, 1996.
''Review: The Reader's Companion to Military History''
Andrew Krepinevich, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1997.

William H. Honan, ''The New York Times'', January 7, 1998.

David Clay Large, ''The New York Times'', May 10, 1998. * ttps://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/books/books-in-brief-nonfiction-865257.html?scp=28&sq=Robert%20Cowley&st=cse ''Books in Brief: Nonfiction'' David Murray, ''The New York Times'', October 17, 1999.
''Making Books; The 'What Ifs' That Fascinate''
Martin Arnold, ''The New York Times'', December 21, 2000.
''It All Could Have Been Different''
Chuck Leddy, San Francisco Chronicle, September 9, 2003.

Laura Miller, New York Times Book Review, September 5, 2004. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cowley, Robert Living people American editors American military historians American male non-fiction writers American military writers American historians of World War II Harvard College alumni Phillips Exeter Academy alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American writers