Piers Mackesy


Piers Gerald Mackesy was a British military historian who taught at the University of Oxford in Oxford.

Early life and education

Piers Mackesy was born in Cults, near Aberdeen in Scotland, the son of Major-General Pierse Joseph Mackesy and Leonora Cook, while his Irish grandfather, William Mackesy, was a Lieutenant General.
Growing up in an army family, Mackesy followed his father's assignments, living on a number of army camps, including Quetta, Pakistan; Chatham, England, and Borden to the south-west of Guildford. Mackesy was educated at Wellington College in Crowthorne and was commissioned into the Royal Scots Greys in 1944, serving until 1947. Then he became a scholar of Christ Church, Oxford, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1950. As a graduate student, Mackesy studied for a D.Phil. degree at Oriel College, Oxford, where he wrote his thesis on British Strategy in the Mediterranean, 1803–1810.
Mackesy's daughter is the novelist Serena Mackesy.

Academic career

After completing his doctorate, Mackesy was appointed Harkness Fellow at Harvard University, and a year later he was appointed a tutor in modern history and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford in 1954, remaining there until he retired in 1988. While at Pembroke, he became senior tutor and vicegerent of the College. For many years, he taught the special subject in military history at Oxford with Professor N. H. Gibbs. The course of study involved using the War of the Second Coalition as a case study for examining the theories of Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general. He was an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College from 1988 until his death in 2014.
Mackesy was visiting fellow, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton ; visiting professor, California Institute of Technology ; Bland-Lee Lecturer at Clark University. He taught at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island; the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York; and Northeastern University in Boston. He was the Lees Knowles Lecturer at Cambridge University in 1972, and served as a member of Council, Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia, 1970–73.
In 1978 the University of Oxford awarded Mackesy the degree of D.Litt. In 1988 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Publications

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