I’m a Lutheran Christian (conservative but not fundamentalist); PhD in Islamic, World and African history (Ohio State, 2001); former US Army Arabic linguist and, later, civilian consultant to US Special Operations Command; author of books on the Middle East and Middle-earth; history professor; and sometime media opiner (as, for example, on Fox News Channel’s “War Stories: Fighting ISIS“).  I’m also a huge Shakespeare fan, occasional thespian, and fence saber as often as I can–usually left-handed.

Since March 2019 I have been writing regularly for The Stream. Here is the link to my 100+ articles there.

So far (as of August 2020), I’ve written five books (all of which are available on Amazon):

The marketing/PR folks at Reinhardt University, where I taught for seven years, did a very nice bio of me, to which I will link at the risk of the sin of Pride.