Michael Reeve grew up in East Yorkshire, in the north of England, where he attended a state comprehensive school, before becoming the first person in his family to go to university. He now lives and works in Greater Manchester, after spending almost twenty years in West Yorkshire.
Michael is a historian of modern Britain, with research interests in military and civilian resilience, maritime and coastal community/identity and the social and cultural history of the British empire. His recent work has been primarily concerned with responses to the threat of enemy attack on the home front during the First World War (1914-18), utilising a social and cultural approach to a wide array of primary sources, from government memoranda and plans, to printed postcards, film, landscapes and material objects. He is currently working on a substantial research project focused on the social and cultural history of tobacco consumption in the context of war during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Michael has published articles for both academic and public audiences on smoking in the war context, anti-German sentiment, northern identity, and the material culture and representation of First World War bombardment. He has also given many talks at UK and international conferences, given museum tours and been invited to radio debates (BBC Radio) and podcasts (Western Front Association) on topics related to his research. In 2021, Michael consulted the production team of the Channel 4 documentary series, Britain by Beach (with presenter Anita Rani), alongside appearing as an interviewee in episode 4. He won the 2016 Yorkshire History Prize for his work on anti-German sentiment in Hull during the First World War and the 2020 Gordon Forster Essay Prize for an article related to the local adaptation of imperial culture in Hull. He has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Royal Historical Society and the Historial de la Grande Guerre.
Michael is open to media, research and historical consulting engagements. Please use the contact page.
Dr. Michael Reeve 