James P. Levy (born January 5, 1965) is an American historian whose published works have dealt with the Royal Navy in the 20th century and with Great Britain in the 1930s.
Historian Andrew Gordon wrote of Appeasement and Rearmament that: Given Britain’s strategic, political, and economic situation, diplomacy make both pragmatic and ethical sense in the late 1930s.
James P. Levy’s succinct and beautifully written synthesis of the case for the tandem policies of appeasement and rearmament places them in their proper context and relationship.
Most controversial in this project has been Levy’s wariness (at times bordering on frustrated hostility) of the hagiography surrounding the person of Winston Spencer Churchill.
His latest article deals with the development of the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm in the run-up to the Second World War.
Later, in a book review that appeared in the Journal of Military History Levy opined: And why must so many of us [historians] tie our historical investigations to a thesis or theory?