Dr. David Zimmerman

Dr. David Zimmerman
Position
Professor
History
Contact
Office: Cle B225
Credentials

BA (UofT), MA, PhD (UNB)

Area of expertise

Modern Canadian and European History, War and Technology, Immigration and Academic Refugees

Office Hours

Spring 2024: Zoom by appointment

Bio

I am the Professor of Military History at the University of Victoria. I was educated at the University of Toronto and the University of New Brunswick, and have been a member of the faculty of the University of Victoria since 1988. I am an expert in the history of the Royal Canadian Navy, anti-submarine warfare, science, technology and war, and the rescue of refugee academics from Germany in the1930s.

Selected publications

Books:

Ensnared Between Hitler and Stalin Great Naval Battle of Ottawa Top Secret Exchange Maritime Command Pacific
  • Ensnared Between Hitler and Stalin: Refugee Scientists in the USSR
  • The Great Naval Battle of Ottawa
  • Top Secret Exchange: The Tizard Mission and the Scientific War
  • Maritime Command Pacific: The Royal Canadian Navy's West Coast Fleet in the Early Cold War
  • Britain`s Shield: Radar and the Defeat of the Luftwaffe

Articles and chapters:

  • "Information and the Air Defence Revolution, 1917-1940," Journal of Strategic Studies, August, 2004. 
  • "The Society for the Protection of Science and Learning and the Politicization of British Science in the 1930s," Minerva, Vol 43 No. 4, (December 2005)

  • "'A Narrow Minded People': Canadian Academics and the Academic Refugee Crisis, 1933-40", I , Vol 88 No 2 ((June 2007), 291-316.

  • "'Protests Butter no Parsnips': Lord Beveridge and the Rescue of Refugee Academics from Europe, 1933-1938", I,  editors Professor Shula Marks, Professor Paul Weindling and Laura Wintour,  The British Academy,  2011.

  • "Technology and War"  The Encyclopedia of War, Wiley Publishers, 2011.

Courses

HSTR 115 The Second World War
HSTR 131 History of Technology
HSTR 344A The First World War
HSTR 383A War and Society Prior to 1700
HSTR 383B War and Society, 1700 - 1914
HSTR 383C War and Society, 1945 - present
HSTR 426 Seminar in Canadian Military History
HSTR 482 Seminar in Peace and War Studies
HSTR 482A Issues in the History of the Second World War

Grad students

Recent PhDs:

  • Hugh Gordon, "Cheers and tears relations between Canadian soldiers and German civilians, 1944-46"
  • Denis Dubord, "Unseen enemies an examination of infectious diseases and their influence upon the Canadian Army in two major campaigns during the First and Second World Wars"
  • Tim Balzer, "The information front : the Canadian Army and news management during the second World War'