G. Kurt Piehler

See Also: Curriculum Vitae | History 439: Oral Histories of War and Peace

Field Specialties

War and Society, Oral History, World War II, History and Memory

G. Kurt Piehler is a specialist in U.S. History with an emphasis on the Twentieth Century.   He received his bachelor’s degree from Drew University (1982) and his Ph.D. from Rutgers University (1990).  Piehler is author of Remembering War the American Way (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, reprint ed., 2004) World War II  in the American Soldiers’ Lives Series (Greenwood Press, 2007),  and co-editor of Major Problems in American Military History (Houghton Mifflin, 1999). 

He is consulting editor for the Oxford Companion to American Military History (1999) and associate editor of Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the Homefront (Macmillan Reference/Gale, 2005).  His articles have appeared in the History of Education Quarterly, Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, and the anthology, Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity (Princeton, 1994).  Piehler is book series editor for World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical Dimension published by Fordham University Press.

As founding director (1994-1998) of the Rutgers Oral History Archives of World War II, Piehler conducted over 200 interviews with veterans of this conflict.  Many of the interviews conducted by Piehler can be found on the Internet at: http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu.   His televised lecture, "The War That Transformed a Generation," which drew on the Rutgers Oral History Archives, appeared on the History Channel in 1997.

Piehler has also held academic positions at Baruch College of the City University of New York, Drew University, and Rutgers University.  He held the National Historical Publications and Records Commission Fellowship at the Peale Family Papers, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (1988-1989).   He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. 

Education

• Ph.D. Rutgers University, 1990

Dissertations Supervised

• “The Age for Conformity?: Korean War Veterans in the Age of McCarthy and Kerouac.” By Melinda L. Pash.  In progress.
  
  
• “Forging Bonds: The Development of U.S.-Australian Relations, 1933-1953.” By Travis Hardy.  In progress.
  
  
• “A Price on Freedom: The Problems and Promise of the Vietnam Era G.I. Bills.” By Mark  Boulton, August 2005. 

Masters Theses Supervised

• “A Fresh Look at Henry Morgenthau.”  By Maggie L. Yancey, December 2007.
  
  
• “From Despised Enemy to Wronged Americans, Public Perceptions of the Japanese American Internment, 1941-1991.”  By Kenichiro Tsuchihashi, May 2007.
  
  
• “‘Hitlerian Jurisprudence;’ American Periodical Reactions to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-1948.”  By Houston Johnston, May 2006.
  
  
• “Transformation of the King’s Mountain Victors.”  By Michael Lynch, November 2005.
  
  
• “Making the Most of a Bad Situation: Coddling, Fraternization, and Total War in Camp
  Crossville, Tennessee.” By Gregory J. Kupsky, May 2004.

Contact Information

G. Kurt Piehler
Associate Professor of History
915 Volunteer Boulevard
6th Floor, Dunford Hall
Knoxville, TN 37996-4065

Office: (865) 974-7094
Fax: (865) 974-3915
E-mail: gpiehler@utk.edu