Jamel Ostwald

Jamel Ostwald is a Professor of History at Eastern Connecticut State University specializing in Early Modern European History, with particular focus on the military history of the Louis XIV era (17th-18th centuries). He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Early Modern European History from The Ohio State University and has established himself as a leading scholar on siege warfare during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Dr. Ostwald's research interests center on Early Modern European Military History, with special emphasis on siege warfare, the 'way of war' during Louis XIV's reign, and the military strategies employed during the War of the Spanish Succession. He has pioneered the integration of Digital History methodologies into traditional historical research, developing Python-based tools for text analysis of historical documents, particularly focusing on cleaning and analyzing OCRed early modern texts. His work bridges traditional military history with digital humanities approaches, creating innovative ways to study historical warfare patterns.

His publication record reveals a strong focus on the intersection of military engineering, siege tactics, and political strategy during the Louis XIV era. Analyzing his body of work shows a progression from traditional military history studies toward more methodologically innovative digital approaches, while maintaining his core focus on early modern siege warfare. His work demonstrates particular interest in Vauban's engineering principles, Marlborough's siege operations, and the cultural representations of siege warfare in early modern Europe.

• 2009 Society for Military History Best Book Award in Non-American History for Vauban under Siege: Engineering Efficiency and Martial Vigor in the War of the Spanish Succession

Dr. Ostwald has developed and teaches within Eastern Connecticut State University's growing Digital History curriculum, mentoring students in conducting digital historical research on various topics. His methodological work focuses on creating tools for historians, including Python scripts for cleaning OCRed historical texts, web scraping for historical data collection, and developing methods to convert unstructured historical documents into structured datasets for analysis. He has also worked extensively with QGIS for mapping early modern military operations, realizing what he described as his '25-year dream to map early modern military operations.'

His research program combines traditional archival work with innovative digital methodologies, particularly in analyzing campaign journals, siege narratives, and military correspondence from the early modern period. He maintains an active blog where he shares his digital history projects and methodological insights.