Antonio Thompson

Dr. Antonio Thompson has a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in American Foreign Policy with areas in Modern U.S., Modern Germany, and International Relations.  He has two Master’s Degrees, one from Western Kentucky University in European History with a Certificate in Military History and the second in American Politics from American Public University.

Dr. Thompson teaches foreign policy, U.S. history, German history, and military history.  He also teaches a study abroad in the summer to the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda.  His major research interests are prisoners of war and World War II.  He has worked most extensively on Axis POWs in the U.S. He has traveled widely throughout North America and Europe including research trips to Germany, Austria, and Denmark as well as to the National Archives at Washington, D.C. and the National Archives II, Modern Military Branch at College Park, Maryland.

He is a recipient of The American Foreign Policy Center Fellowship at Louisiana Tech, the Prisoner of War Research Grant from the National Park Service at Andersonville, Georgia, and was a West Point Summer Seminar Fellow.  He has been nominated for Austin Peay’s Richard M. Hawkins Award for research excellence and is a recipient of a teaching fellowship to the United States Military Academy where he taught both halves of History of the Military Art to seniors.  While at West Point he also participated in staff rides at Saratoga and Gettysburg.

He has published five books and several articles and book chapters and currently has two new monographs under contract with McFarland & Company.  He has presented his research locally and internationally.  Local talks include public lectures given at APSU, the Sons of the American Revolution, and at the regional Ohio Valley Conference.  Nationally he gave invited talks at Emory University in Atlanta on Hobbes, Machiavelli and the rebuilding of society and the Cultural Arts Conference as part of Comic Con International in San Diego, California where he spoke on Captain America as a foreign policy icon.  Internationally his speaking engagements include conference talks on the captive Kriegsmarine given at the University of Greenwich in England, and on German POWs held in the U.S. at Humboldt University in Berlin. 

Dr. Thompson also takes student success seriously.  He is a regular member of graduate student committees and has served as the undergraduate Veterans Affairs advisor and conditional admit advisor.  He has hosted a series of workshops on job search success, how to use microfilm, how to use Chicago Style documentation, and how to conduct research.  He has received several SASI (Student Academic Success Initiative) Grants.  One of these was with APSU Professor Nancy Gibson and it allowed them to take students to the Tennessee State Library and Archives.  Another one was jointly awarded with Dr. Amy Thompson which allowed them to bring Harvard professor Dr. Steven Schlozman to campus to talk about neuroscience and zombies.  Dr. Thompson has also conducted “mock” conferences that allow his students to present their research to APSU campus wide audiences and help prepare them for history conferences.  As part of his American Military History course he led a “staff” ride to Fort Donelson.  He also sponsor’s a regular food drive for the APSU SOS Food Pantry.  Students have recognized his efforts by awarding him with both the Phi Alpha Theta Professor of Inspiration and the Exemplary Faculty Member of the Year.

Undergraduate

• HIST 2010 - Early United States History  
• HIST 2020 - Modern United States History  
• HIST 3000 - Historical Methods  
• HIST 3410 - Modern Germany  
• HIST 4012 - German Military History: 1618-1945  
• HIST 4065 - Modern Germany  
• HIST 4730 - US Foreign Relations Since 1890  
• HIST 4740 - The Rise of America as a Great Power: 1898-1945  
• HIST 4790 - The Military Nontraditional Roles  
• HIST 4830 - Prisoners of War in American History  
• HIST 4910 - Study Abroad to Antigua

Graduate

• HIST 5012 - German Military History  
• HIST 5013 - Navies and Empires 1900 to Present  
• HIST 5017 - The Military in Nontraditional Roles  
• HIST 5022 - American Foreign Policy in the 20th Century  

• American Foreign Policy  

• German History  

• Prisoners of War  

• World War II  

• Military History  

• International Relations  

Books  

• Men in German Uniform:  German Prisoners of War Held in the United States during the Second World War (TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2010 (hardcover), 2016 (paperback).    

• The Real World Implications of a Zombie Apocalypse.  (NC:  McFarland Publishing Company, 2015).      

• The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, The Colonial Period to 1877. (NY:  Routledge, 2014).      

• The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, 1865 to the Present. (NY:  Routledge, 2013).      

• German Jackboots on Kentucky Bluegrass:  Housing German Prisoners of War in Kentucky, 1942-1946 (2008).    

 

Articles/Chapters

• “Zombies in the Classroom:  Breathing New Life into Higher Education,” Critical Conversations: An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 1, Fall 2014.    

• “A Particularly Nasty, Brutish and Short Life:  Hobbes, Machiavelli and the formation of government in the zombie apocalypse,” chapter in The Real World Implications of a Zombie Apocalypse (NC:  McFarland, 2015)    

• “The Housing of Axis Prisoners of War in the U.S. during World War II,” chapter in The Routledge Handbook of U.S. Diplomatic and Military History, 1865 to the Present.  (NY:  Routledge, 2013).      

• “Nationalism and Power:  Captain America, Governmental Policy and the Problem of American Nationalism,” chapter in Age of Heroes, Eras of Men: Superheroes and the American Experience (UK:  Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).    

• “Winning the War Behind the Lines:  Colonel George Chescheir and the Axis POWs at Fort Benning, Georgia.”  The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society Vol. 105, No. 3, 2008.