Noel Geoffrey Parker FRHistS FBA (born 25 December 1943) is an English historian specialising in the history of Western Europe, Spain, and warfare during the early modern era.
He holds his BA, MA, PhD, and LittD degrees from Cambridge University where he studied under the historian Sir John Elliott.
[2]Parker argues that Western armies were stronger because they emphasized discipline, that is, "the ability of a formation to stand fast in the face of the enemy, where they're attacking or being attacked, without giving way to the natural impulse of fear and panic.” Discipline came from drills and marching in formation, target practice, and creating small “artificial kinship groups” such as the company and the platoon, to enhance psychological cohesion and combat efficiency.
He has trained and mentored several generations of scholars by instilling in them his characteristic and successful recipe for historical research: focusing on big questions but keeping one's feet on the ground, or, as he might put it, one's ass in the archives.
[5] In 2014, Parker was awarded the British Academy Medal for his book Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century.