Rodney P. Carlisle earned a B.A. (cum laude) in history from Harvard and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is a former chair of the history department at Rutgers University, Camden, USA, where he taught for more than 30 years, specializing in 20th-century history, in particular military history. Carlisle is now professor emeritus there. He has written many articles and more than 30 books on history, including Facts On File's Encyclopedia of the Atomic Age and Iraq War and Afghanistan War in Chelsea House's America at War set. His most recent work is Sovereignty at Sea: U.S. Merchant Ships and American Entry into World War I.