Dr. John Stapleton

Dr. John Stapleton

Associate Professor

john.stapleton@westpoint.edu

Biography


Dr. John M. Stapleton, Jr. is currently an Associate Professor in the Military History Division.   Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, John attended New Trier High School, graduating in 1982.  After graduation, he attended Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin where, in addition to earning a BA in History, John was a varsity football player and co-captain of the lacrosse club.  After a five-year stint in the business world, John returned to academia in 1991 where he enrolled in the graduate history program at the Ohio State University.  Specializing in military history and the history of early modern Europe, John won several graduate awards for scholarship including a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship and a Netherland-America Foundation Fellowship to study the Dutch language and conduct dissertation research in the Netherlands.  After earning his Ph.D. from Ohio State in 2003, John worked briefly for OSU’s Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching as an assistant editor before joining the faculty of United States Military Academy in 2004.  Since joining the History Department, John has taught twelve different courses in both the International and Military History Divisions and has led Staff Rides to Turkey, France, and the Netherlands.  In addition to his teaching duties, John is an assistant Officer-in-Charge of the Wargames Club.

Ongoing Research Projects


“Victorious without Triumph”: William III, the Dutch Republic, and coalition warfare in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1688-1713 (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers).  Book manuscript based on dissertation project.

Publications & Presentations


“The Dutch Republic, 1581-1750,” entry in Steven Stein, ed., The Sea in World History (ABC Clio, 2016).

“Dutch East India Company,” entry in Steven Stein, ed., The Sea in World History (ABC Clio, 2016).

“Anglo-Dutch Wars,” entry in Steven Stein, ed., The Sea in World History (ABC Clio, 2016).

“British Military Development to 1700: From Civil War to Great Power,” Ty Seidule, Cliff Rogers, and John Stapleton, eds., The West Point History of Warfare, Volume 1 (i-Book, 2013), 116-182. 

“‘By thes difficultys you may see the great disadvantage a confederat army has’: Marlborough, the Allies and the Campaigns in the Low Countries, 1702-1706,” in John B. Hattendorf, Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr., and Rolof van Hovell tot Westerflier, eds., Marlborough: Soldier and Diplomat (Rotterdam:  Karwansaray Publishers, 2012), 145-171. 

“Prelude to Rijswijk: William III, Louis XIV, and the Strange Case of Marshal Boufflers,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, Volume 35 (2007), 87-106.

“The Dual Monarchy in Practice: William III and the Confederate Army, 1689-1697,” in Esther Mijers and David Onnekink, ed., Redefining William III: the impact of the King-Stadholder in international context (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2007), 69-90. 

 “The Blue-Water Dimension of King William’s War: Amphibious Operations and Allied Strategy during the Nine Years’ War, 1688-1697,” in Mark Fissel and David Trim, ed., Amphibious Warfare and European Expansion, 1000-1700: War, Commerce, and State Formation (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006), 315-356. 

 “‘The World Is Not Enough.’  The Empire of Philip II (1556-1598),” co-authored with Geoffrey Parker, in Exploring the European Past: Texts and Images (Mason, OH: Thomson Learning Custom Publishing, 2003).

“Grand Pensionary at War: Anthonie Heinsius and the Nine Years’ War,” in Jan A. F. de Jongste and Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr., ed., Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic, 1688-1720: Politics, War, and Finance (The Hague: Institute of Netherlands History, 2002), 199-227. 

“Towards a Seventeenth Century Operational Art? An analysis of William III’s 1695 Campaign,” at the John F. Guilmartin, Jr. Festschrift Conference, hosted by the Mershon Center, the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 24 September 2016.

Presented “Defending the Spanish Netherlands: Dijkveld, the Low Countries, and the Logistics of the Confederate Army,” at The Society of Military History Conference, hosted by the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa, ON, Canada, 16 April 2016.

Commented on a panel titled “Descent into War: 1939-40 in Western Europe,” at The Society of Military History Conference, hosted by the USAF Air War College, Montgomery, AL, 11 April 2015. 

Presented “‘By thes difficultys you may see the great disadvantage a confederat army has’: Marlborough, the Allies, and the Campaigns in the Low Countries, 1702-1706” at The Society of Military History Conference, Cantigny First Division Foundation, Lisle, IL, 10 June 2011.

Moderated “Roundtable on New Historical Approaches to War, Culture, and Society,” at the Campaign Communities: New Historical Perspectives on Armies, Gender and the State: A Conference in Honor of John A. Lynn II meeting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 11 September 2009.

Presented “A Mercantile State at War:  The Dutch Republic and the Nine Years’ War,” at the Gunther E. Rothenberg Seminar in Military History: War in the Age of Louis XIV meeting, High Point University, 7-8 November, 2008.

Moderated a panel titled “War as an Agent of Expansion, Integration and Cultural Transformation in 17th Century Europe” at The Society of Military History Conference, Weber State University, Ogden UT, 19 April 2008.

Presented “Prelude to Rijswijk: William III, Louis XIV, and the Strange Case of Marshal Boufflers,” at the thirty-fifth Annual Conference of The Western Society For French History, Albuquerque, NM, 8 November 2007.

Presented “John C. Rule: Historian of Louis XIV, France, and Europe,” at the thirty-fourth Annual Conference of The Western Society For French History, Long Beach CA, 21 October 2006.

Presented “Going Dutch:  Anglo-Dutch coalition warfare in the late seventeenth century”, at the New York Military Affairs Symposium, New York University, New York, NY, 9 September 2005. 

Presented “The Blue Water Dimension of King William’s War: Amphibious Operations and Allied Strategy during the Nine Years’ War, 1688-1697,” at The Society of Military History Conference, The Citadel, Charleston, SC, 25 February, 2005.

Presented “A Crisis of Strategy?  Geography, logistics and war in the early modern Low Countries, 1688-1712,” at The Society of Military History Conference, Bethesda, MD, 21 May 2004. 

Presented “William III, the Dutch Republic, and the origins of Britain’s continental strategy,” at The American Historical Association Conference, Washington, DC, 9 January 2004.

Presented “The Dual Monarchy in practice: William III and the Confederate Army, 1689-1697,” at The Society of Military History Conference, Knoxville, TN, 3 May 2003.

Presented “The Dual Monarchy in practice: William III and the Confederate Army, 1689-1697,” at William III: Politics and Culture in International Context, an international conference sponsored by the Williamite Universe Network, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 13-14 December 2002.

Presented “King William’s War: Anglo-Dutch relations and war in the Spanish Netherlands, 1689-97,” at the North American Conference on British Studies annual meeting, Baltimore, MD, 10 November 2002.

Presented “Raadpensionaris at war: Anthonie Heinsius and the Nine Years’ War, 1689-97,” at Anthonie Heinsius and the Dutch Republic, 1688-1720: Politics, Finance, and War, an international conference sponsored by the Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, The Hague, The Netherlands, 29 March 2001.

Presented “It will be a tough nut to crack”: the Siege of Namur, the logistics of the allies’ 1695 campaign, and the Dutch art of siegecraft,” at The Society of Military History Conference, Quantico, VA, 29 April 2000.

 Presented “‘A tough nut to crack’: the siege of Namur and Dutch logistics administration in the Nine Years’ War,” as part of the War Studies Department Lecture Series, King’s College, London, 12 March 1998.

Presented “For clan or country?  The mutiny of the Breadalbane Fencibles, 1 December 1794,” at Theatrum Militarum III: Graduate Student Conference in Military History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 22 April 1995.

Presented “The development of fighting tactics in the British Army, 1685-1712,” at the 60th annual meeting of the Southern Historical Conference at Galt House, Louisville, KY, 10 November 1994.

Presented “The Canadians in Normandy: A study of Canadian combat effectiveness during the Normandy campaign, 6-12 June 1944,” at Theatrum Militarum I, Graduate Student Conference in Military History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, 15 May 1993.