EDWARD J. MAROLDA, during a forty-year career with the Naval Historical Center/Naval History and Heritage Command, served as the Director of Naval History (Acting) Senior Historian., Chief of the Histories and Archives Division, and Head of the ContemporaryHistory Branch. The Department of the Navy honored Marolda for his contributions with its Superior Civilian Service Award. He researches and publishes extensively on a wide range of naval and military history topics and eras to include the U.S. Navy in the 19th and 20th centuries. He lectures extensively at public venues and historical gatherings throughout the United States and abroad. He has served as an officer and/or member of the Society for Military History, U.S. Naval Institute, North American Society for Oceanic History, and the U.S. Commission on Military History. He holds degrees in history from Pennsylvania Military College (BA), Georgetown University (MA), and George Washington University (Ph. D). Dr. Marolda served as a U.S. Army officer in the Republic of Vietnam during 1969 and 1970. In 2017, the Naval Historical Center, recognizing Marolda’s decades of distinguished scholarship and dedication to the history of the U.S. Navy, awarded him the prestigious Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2025, the U.S. Naval Institute named him Author of the Year for 2024 for two articles in Naval History Magazine. For seven semesters at Georgetown University, he taught courses on the Cold War in the Far East and China.
HOMEPORT: Washington D.C./Northern Virginia
AREAS OF EXPERTISE: The U.S. Navy in the Pacific, the Cold War, Vietnam War, World War II, the Korean War, and the Persian Gulf War.
NOTABLE BOOKS
Cold War Storm: The U.S. Navy at the End of the Vietnam War and the Looming Soviet Threat, ed. (USNI) 2026
The Brown Water War at 50: A Retrospective on the Coastal and Riverine Conflict in Vietnam, ed. with Thomas J. Cutler (USNI), 2023
US Seventh Fleet, Vietnam 1964-75 (Osprey), 2023
Admirals Under Fire: The U.S. Navy and the Vietnam War (Texas Tech), 2021
Combat at Close Quarters (USNI), 2018
Shield and Sword: The U.S. Navy and the Persian Gulf Warm (USNI), 2001 (Awarded TR and FDR Naval History Prize by Navy League of New York)
By Sea, Air, and Land (NHHC), 1994, recipient of NASOH John Lyman Book Award)
From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959-1965 (NHHC), 1986 (with O.P. Fitzgerald)
Ready Seapower: A History of the U.S. Seventh Fleet (NHHC), 2012
Translated into Chinese. Published in Taiwan, 2023
The U.S. Navy and the Korean War, ed. (USNI), 2007. Translated into Korean
Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy, and the Spanish-American War, ed. (Palgrave), 2001
The Washington Navy Yard: An Illustrated History (NHC), 1999
FDR and the U.S. Navy, ed. (St. Martin’s Press), 1998
Operation End Sweep: A History of Minesweeping Operations in NVN (NHC), 1993
Carrier Operations (Bantam), 1987
For USNI’s Oral History Program, completed oral histories with retired admirals Stanley R. Arthur, Joseph W. Prueher, and Jonathan Greenert.
Radio, Television, Video Contributions
Admirals Under Fire, Preble Hall Podcasts, Jul 2024; Admirals Under Fire: US Naval Leaders and the Vietnam War, North American Society for Oceanic History Podcast, 21 Jul 2024; The Siege of Wonsan, US Naval Institute Podcast, 17 Aug 2023; Desert Storm Lessons Learned, US Naval Institute Podcast, 3 Feb 2021; Operation Linebacker, US Naval Institute Podcast, 22 Jul 2022; Admiral Jim Holloway and the Post-Vietnam Navy, Bell Lecture Series, Nov 2021, YouTube; 50th Anniversary of North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, Naval Historical Found, 2021, YouTube; Civilian Control of the Military, Naval Historical Foundation, 2021, YouTube; Appeared on programs televised and distributed nationally by the Pritzger Military Museum and Library, 2018, 2019; Admirals Under Fire: US Naval Leaders and the Vietnam War, G.R. Ford Library, 21 Dec 2017; The Seventh Fleet in the Pacific, pts. I and II, Pentagon Speakers Program; Appeared on camera at the Naval Media Center and spoke on President Ronald Reagan’s impact on the U.S military. Interview later aired on Navy/Marine Corps News, June 2004; Appeared on camera for an ABC News Documentary on Operation Neptune, the naval aspect of the Normandy landings of June 1944, May 2004; Provided on-camera commentary on the World War II battles of Midway, Atlantic, and Normandy for Media Works production The Navy and Battlespace Integration, January 2003; Appeared as an on-camera commentator for the History Channel’s Saving History’s Treasures program and discussed USS Sequoia and other yachts used by the President and the Secretary of the Navy from the 1890s to the 1970s.