Stephen K. Stein

A specialist in military, maritime, and sexual history, Stephen K. Stein has written on topics ranging from ancient battles to aviation, BDSM, and the iPod. His publications include From Torpedoes to Aviation: Washington Irving Chambers and Technological Innovation in the New Navy, 1877-1913 (2007); “The Greely Relief Expedition and the New Navy,” International Journal of Naval History 5 (December 2006), which won the Rear Admiral Ernest M. Eller Prize in Naval History; "The Experimental Era: U.S. Naval Aviation through 1916" in Douglas V. Smith (ed.), One Hundred Years of Navy Air Power (Naval Institute Press, 2010); and "Interventions in Asia, 1899-1927" in James Bradford (ed.), A Companion to American Military History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010); Twenty-Five Years of Living in Leather: The National Leather Association, 1986-2011 (2012); and The Sea in World History: Trade, Travel, and Exploration (2017), which was featured in an episode of "Adam Ruins Everything."HIs book, Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite (2021), chronicles the development of the BDSM community and is the first comprehensive history of that community. His most recent work is Military Strategy for Writers.

He is a Professor of History at the University of Memphis and an adjunct professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College.