Dr Alex Mayhew

Alex is an historian of modern conflict whose work uses interdisciplinary methods to explore how individuals and communities make sense of crisis, violence, and upheaval. His research centres on ‘sensemaking’ – the ways people make meaning from their experiences – and speaks to questions of resilience, morale, and the dynamics of violence. His first book, Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front (Cambridge University Press, 2024), received an Honourable Mention for the WW1 Historical Association's Tomlinson Prize.

Most recently, he has reconstructed the story of a horticultural society formed inside a German camp for civilian internees, which represents an unexpected case of how popular culture and the natural world helped prisoners endure years of captivity. He is also examining colonial violence and combatant experience in Britain’s Mesopotamia campaign. His next book will follow a single family across Britain’s global First World War (from the Western Front and Aden to Mesopotamia, India, and Burma) between 1914 and the 1920s. A parallel project asks how wartime inventors imagined an emerging ‘electrical age’ would transform the character of war.

Alex’s work has appeared in journals including The English Historical Review, The Historical Journal, War in History, and First World War Studies, and has featured in The Times and on Times Radio. He is keen to share his research with public audiences. He appeared as an expert on the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are?, has spoken at numerous public events, and contributed to several history podcasts. He also advised on a BBC Bitesize game introducing the First World War to younger audiences.

A committed educator and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Alex won an LSE Excellence in Education Award in 2024 and has been shortlisted for several teaching awards. He is the Department of International History’s AI Lead, where he has helped develop its policy on artificial intelligence, secured funding for new initiatives, and led a project on the ethical use of AI in assessment and feedback. He has also run funded trials on experiential learning, including student research visits to national archives.

Beyond the LSE, Alex is a Managing Editor of 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopaedia of the First World War, an external examiner for the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and has examined postgraduate / doctoral theses at several institutions. As an education consultant, he has helped universities and other organisations design courses on history, academic skills, critical thinking, research supervision, and sustainability, and he has worked with secondary teachers through the PTI. He completed his doctorate at the LSE (2014-18), funded by an LSE PhD Scholarship and a prize from the Historial de la Grande Guerre, France, and previously held posts on LSE100, in LSE LIFE, and as Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham.

Other Titles: Departmental AI Lead

Awards:

• 2025 Nominated. LSE Student Led Teaching Awards: Affirming Academic Mentor.
• 2025 Honourable Mention, 2024 Norman B. Tomlinson Jnr. Book Prize for Best Work of History in English on World War I, WW1 Historical Association (US).
• 2024 LSE Excellence in Education Award.
• 2024 Nominated. LSE Student Led Teaching Awards: Excellent Feedback and Communication
• 2022 Dennis Showalter Lecture for an Emerging Scholar, International Society for First World War Studies
• 2021 Highly Commended. LSE Excellence in Education Award, Department of International History.
• 2021 Shortlisted. LSE Student Led Teaching Awards: Inspirational Teaching & Exceptional Teaching in an Unprecedented Year
• 2020 Shortlisted. LSE Student Led Teaching Awards: Sharing Subject Knowledge & Mentoring and Personal Development
• 2017 Bourse Gerda Henkel du Centre International de Recherche de l’Historial de la Grande Guerre, France.
• 2017 LSE Class Teacher Award
• 2014-18 LSE PhD Scholarship 2013 Brewer Prize for Modern History, King’s College London

Key Expertise

Warfare; Morale; Resilience; Sensemaking; Identity; AI in Education

Dr. Alex Mayhew teaches the following courses in the Department:

Undergradute

HY116 International Politics since 1914: Peace and War

HY120 Historical Approaches to the Modern World

HY226 The Greater War c. 1912-1923

Postgraduate

HY4C1 Fighting and Experiencing the Greater' War c. 1912-23

HY501: International History Research Student Workshop

2026

‘Morale and the Experience of the Trenches’ - Dr Alex Mayhew has contributed a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to the Western Front, edited by Nick Lloyd

How did anyone survive the trenches of the Western Front and find the will to keep fighting? That is the question at the heart of a new chapter by Dr Alex Mayhew in The Cambridge Companion to the Western Front, edited by Nick Lloyd and published by Cambridge University Press.

Drawing on soldiers’ own diaries and letters from across the British, French, German, Belgian and American armies, Alex’s chapter explores what really sustained morale: good food and rest, leadership, comradeship, and above all, hope – soldiers’ belief in a lasting peace and a future worth enduring for. It's an resilience in the face of almost unimaginable conditions.

This is just one contribution to a landmark volume marking why the Western Front still fascinates, horrifies, and moves us more than a century on.

Dr Alex Mayhew takes students on walking tour of London war memorials

Dr Alex Mayhew took a group of our students from the HY4C1 course on a walking tour of various war memorials in central London.
They began with the Imperial Camel Corps Memorial, Anglo-Belgian War Memorial, and the RAF Memorial (Victoria Embankment), moved to the Gurkha Memorial, the Cenotaph, and Earl Haig Memorial (Whitehall), then proceeded to the Guards Memorial (Horse Guards Road), and finished at the Edith Cavell Memorial (St Martin’s Place / Trafalgar Square).
Once the tour concluded, the group stopped in at a local pub for a quick pint and a debrief.

Dr Alex Mayhew takes HY120 students on visit to the National Archives

On Wednesday 11 March, Dr Alex Mayhew took a group of HY120 students to the UK’s National Archives for the final HY120 archive trip of the year.

Led by several of the TNA’s records specialists, the students were able to engage with materials spanning colonial Ireland, the First World War, Africa and the Second World War, and communism in the British Empire. All of this was funded by a generous Eden Centre Catalyst Grant.

Dr Alex Mayhew's recent book 'Making Sense of the Great War' has enjoyed rave reviews over the last few months!

Dr Mayhew's book, which received Honourable Mention for the 2025 Tomlinson Prize, has seen the following excellent reviews over the last few months...

‘This is a sophisticated and elaborate study of mental survival and fortitude among a discrete group of men in an immeasurably challenging time and place. As such, it adds greatly to the military history of morale during the First World War, offering new insights into Englishness, subjecthood and the belief systems men were fighting for during this fraught and terrifying time.’ (Nicoletta Gullace, English Historical Review)

‘[T]his book is a major contribution and deserves to stand in the canon … as a “standard work” on the morale of the British soldier in the Great War.’ (Tom Thorpe, Stand To! The Journal of the Western Front Association)

‘Making Sense of the Great War offers insights to scholars and could also be used well in the classroom. It is highly readable … this book is a fresh look at … familiar ground and a welcome addition to the conversation surrounding morale.’ (Elizabeth Stice, First World War Studies)

’This fine monograph … both advances our understanding of morale and highlights the fundamental difficulties which remain at the heart of this endeavour.’ (Vanda Wilcox, War in History)

‘Mayhew’s analysis paints a rich picture of the various ways in which men made sense of the war … Making Sense of the Great War offers points of reflections not just for the historian, but also for scholars of psychology, sociology, and military processes.’ (James Sewry, LSE Review of Books).

See here for a link to Dr Mayhew's book

Dr Alex Mayhew hosts student trip to the National Army Museum

Dr Alex Mayhew took a group of our HY120 students on another of this term’s archive trips. This time they joined curator Justin Saddington in the archive of the National Army Museum where he introduced the group to different archival documents, stretching from the English Civil War to the First World War.

2025

Dr Alex Mayhew's book receives new review (20 August 2025)

Making Sense of the Great War: Crisis, Englishness, and Morale on the Western Front has been reviewed by James Sewry at LSE Review of Books.

"Delving into primary sources including letters and diaries, the book offers rich insights into the survival strategies of infantrymen on the front lines, making for a valuable and highly readable contribution to First World War scholarship," wrote James Sewry.

Read the full review HERE

2024

Dr Mayhew's new book receives 'Honourable Mention' in 2024 Tomlinson Prize

Last month the WW1 Historical Association awarded Alex Mayhew’s Making Sense of the Great War ‘Honourable Mention’ in their 2024 Tomlinson Prize for the best work of history in English on World War One.

Alex’s book will be released in paperback in May/June.

Find a link to the book HERE

LSE’s Research for the World (19 March 2024)

Alex’s research was showcased on the LSE’s digital magazine Research for the World in March 2024 ahead of the publication of his book.

2023

Who Do You Think You Are BBC Television (20 July 2023)

Alex was an expert on series 20 of the BBC’s flagship family history programme where he helped comedian Chris Ramsey uncover his great-grandfather’s experiences on the Western Front during the First World War.

Morale in the BEF on the Western Front, 1917-1918, Combat Morale Podcast, Season 2 Ep. 3, (29 June 2023)

Alex talks about his research into the morale of the British soldier in the final 18 months of the Great War. He and the host talk about their respective perspectives on morale and motivation of the British soldier in the last two years of the war. They consider the respective importance of hope, small group cohesion, social norms, junior leadership, and ideology.

The State of Great War Scholarship, Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast, Ep. 300, with Prof. John Bourne and Prof. Jonathan Boff (15 May 2023)

Alex joins Prof. John Bourne and Prof. Jonathan Boff (both of the University of Birmingham) to discuss the current state of academic research on the First World War.

Invited Speaker, ‘WW1 and WW2 through a different lens’, CPD Subject Day, The PTI, (17 March 2023)

Alex was invited to contribute to a PTI subject day. He ran a lecture and workshop in which he and a group of secondary school teachers considered how to teach the history of the First World War in new and exciting ways.

2022

Invited Speaker, ‘Love and War’, In Conversation with JC Niala, PoliNations Festival, Birmingham, (4 September 2022)

Alex took part in a lunchtime talk hosted by Claire Ratinon at PoliNations Festival, Birmingham. Alongside JC Niala he discussed how people draw closer to nations in times of crisis, be they pandemics or war.

Morale in the British Army during 1917 and 1918, Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast, ep. 267, (8 August 2022)

Alex talked about his research into the morale of the British soldier in the final 18 months of the Great War.

Invited Speaker, Fig.studio presents - JC Niala: 1918 Allotment, TORCH Oxford and Art Council England, Oxford, (19 March 2022)

This event marked the launch of JC Niala’s book of poetry entitled ‘Portal: 1918 Allotment’ which comprised poetic, photographic and narrative domentation of her project recreating a 1918 style allotment in Oxford. As one of the speakers at the event, Alex explored allotments, vegetable shows, and coping during the Great War.

‘A Noisy Noise Annoys an Oyster’, Podcast from the Past, Season 4 ep. 22, (26 January 2022)

Alex and fellow historian Karen Averby joined Tom Jackson to discuss the postcards from their pasts. We meet the Brummies of North Devon, Pete Seeger and Joan Baez at the Albert Hall, Mr George next door, and look for a better picture of ruins. Taking a closer look at the postcards of the First World War and seaside Grand Hotels, our guests share cards from their collections.

2021

‘Alex Mayhew on British WW1 Wartime Myths’, Real Time History Podcast, Episode 4, (15 July 2021)

Alex joins the Real Time History Podcast discusses how British ‘myths’ of the First World War formed. Some are fabrications, others are the product of more modern concerns and retrospections, whilst the origin of others can be found in the experience of 1917 in Belgium and France.

‘British Army Allotments during the First World War’, The Times and Times Radio, (3 February 2021)

Alex’s research into the proliferation of allotments and vegetable shows on the Western Front was covered by The Times’ historical correspondent and Times Radio.

2018

‘Making Sense of the Western Front: English Infantrymen’s Morale and Perception of Crisis during the First World War,’ Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast, ep. 115, (27 May 2018)

Alex joined the Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast to discuss English infantryman’s morale and perception of crisis on the Western Front.