Annual Pitt Professor Beth Bailey, 'Making Change: Why the US Army Matters'

"Of course, it's an institution of social change. Because it has to manage all of the social changes that are taking place in society—because it's pulling people in."

In this episode, we're joined by special guest Beth Bailey, the 2025–26 Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Fellow of Jesus College.

Established in the 1940s, the Pitt Professorship brings some of the most distinguished U.S.-based scholars in history and the social sciences to Cambridge. Past holders include (but aren't limited to) Eugene Genovese, John Hope Franklin, Heather Ann Thompson, Kathleen Brown, Bernard Bailyn, David Blight, and Erika Lee.

Beth Bailey is a historian of Military, War, and Society in the modern United States, as well as of Gender and Sexuality in twentieth-century America. She recently completed a decade as a member of the History Faculty at the University of Kansas, where she served as Foundation Distinguished Professor and Founding Director of the Centre for Military, War, and Society Studies.

In 2022, she received the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement from the Society for Military History. She also served as chair of the Department of the Army Historical Advisory Subcommittee, a role appointed by the Secretary of the Army.

“...No matter how significant institutions and structures are, individuals can and do make a difference.”

Hosted by Megan Renoir, PhD Candidate at Homerton College

Production by Daisy Semmler, MPhil, Fitzwilliam College (2025)

Timestamped References

[07:26] Dissertation & first book on the history of dating

From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, John Hopkins University Press, 1989.

[17:10] Co-edited volume with Kara Vuic

Managing Sex in the U.S. Military, co-edited with Kara Vuic, Alesha Doan, Shannon Portillo, University of Nebraska Press, 2022.

[22:12] Recent publication: An Army Afire

An Army Afire: The U.S. Army and the Problem of Race in the Vietnam Era, University of North Carolina Press, 2023

[27:51] Edited publications with historian David Farber

Beyond Pearl Harbor: A Pacific History, co-edited with David Farber, University Press of Kansas, 2019

America in the Seventies, co-edited with David Farber, University Press of Kansas, 2004

[32:09] Book on ‘War Time’ read in Bailey's MPhil Seminar

Mary L. Dudziak, War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.