About Alex Beckstrand

I am a current Ph.D. student in the United States and the World at the University of Connecticut. I study American civil-military relations and militarism broadly, with a focus on the Woodrow Wilson era. I have completed comprehensive exams and will reach candidacy soemtime this summer (2022). I am also an officer in the United States Marine Corps Reserves and I work in the private sector in the aerospace industry. I am a husband and a father and love spending time with my family on hikes, at baseball games, and enjoying the outdoors.

Alex J. Beckstrand is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut, where he researches Woodrow Wilson’s civil-military relations. He is an officer in the Marine Corps Reserves, is a Lecturer at Central Connecticut State University, and works in the aerospace industry. Email: alex.beckstrand@uconn.edu Twitter: @AlexBeckstrand

NBN Episodes hosted by Alex:

Jennifer Mittelstadt and Mark R. Wilson, "The Military and the Market" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2022)

November 25, 2022

The Military and the Market

Jennifer Mittelstadt and Mark R. Wilson
Hosted by Alex Beckstrand

Throughout its history, the U.S. military has worked in close connection to market-based institutions and structures. It has run systems of free and u…

Meighen McCrae, "Coalition Strategy and the End of the First World War: The Supreme War Council and War Planning, 1917-1918" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

September 1, 2022

Coalition Strategy and the End of the First World War

Meighen McCrae
Hosted by Alex Beckstrand

When the Germans requested an armistice in October 1918, it was a shock to the Allied political and military leadership. They had been expecting, and …

Dean A. Nowowiejski, "The American Army in Germany, 1918-1923: Success Against the Odds" (UP of Kansas, 2021)

April 27, 2022

The American Army in Germany, 1918-1923

Dean A. Nowowiejski
Hosted by Alex Beckstrand

The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923: Success against the Odds (UP of Kansas, 2021) by Dean A. Nowowiejski fills a gap in American military and pol…

Shannon Bontrager, "Death at the Edges of Empire: Fallen Soldiers, Cultural Memory, and the Making of an American Nation, 1863-1921" (U Nebraska Press, 2020)

December 23, 2021

Death at the Edges of Empire

Shannon Bontrager
Hosted by Alex Beckstrand

Hundreds of thousands of individuals perished in the epic conflict of the American Civil War. As battles raged and the specter of death and dying hung…

Heather P. Venable, "How the Few Became the Proud: Crafting the Marine Corps Mystique 1874-1918" (Naval Institute Press, 2019)

October 18, 2021

How the Few Became the Proud

Heather P. Venable
Hosted by Alex Beckstrand

For more than half of its existence, members of the Marine Corps largely self-identified as soldiers. It did not yet mean something distinct to be a M…