Michael Livingston

Michael Livingston is an American historian, novelist, and academic. He writes military history and historical fantasy. He is known for Bloody Crowns (2025), The Shards of Heaven, and studies of medieval literature. He has twice won the Distinguished Book Prize from the Society for Military History.

Michael Livingston was born in Colorado. He studied history at Baylor University, where he received a BA. He later completed an MA in Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. He then earned both an MA and a PhD in English from the University of Rochester. His academic work focused on medieval literature and historical culture.

Since 2006, Livingston has taught at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He currently serves as Citadel Distinguished Professor. He also worked as Secretary-General for the US Commission on Military History. Alongside teaching, he has published research on J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf, Geoffrey Chaucer, James Joyce, and Robert Jordan.

Livingston’s historical work combines military history with literary analysis. He won the Distinguished Book Prize from the Society for Military History in 2017 and again in 2020. In 2024, he was shortlisted for the Crown Awards. He also co-hosts the Bow and Blade Podcast, which discusses history and fantasy literature.

Beyond publishing, Livingston has appeared in television documentaries. He co-stars in the Discovery Channel series Contact, where he examines claims related to extraterrestrial life. He has also presented programmes for the History Hit Network on figures including William Wallace and Henry V.

As a novelist, Livingston published his debut fantasy novel, The Shards of Heaven, in 2015. Two sequels followed the book. He also wrote the bestselling Seaborn trilogy. His fiction combines classical history, warfare, and mythic themes.

His latest history book, Bloody Crowns: A New History of the Hundred Years War (2025), reinterprets the traditional history of the Hundred Years’ War. Livingston argues that the conflict lasted closer to two centuries, from 1292 to 1492. The book expands beyond England and France to include wars in Scotland, Wales, Italy, the Low Countries, and the Iberian Peninsula.

Bloody Crowns examines military change, political development, and the formation of national identity. Livingston rejects the traditional English-centred narrative and instead presents the wars as part of France’s long process of self-definition. The book was published in the United States as Bloody Crowns and in the United Kingdom as The Two Hundred Years War.

Photo credit: Lance Livingston