Evan Wilson is an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College's Hattendorf Historical Center in Newport, Rhode Island. A recipient of the Sir Julian Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History, he is the author or editor of six books, most recently The Horrible Peace: British Veterans and the End of the Napoleonic Wars.

Paul Kennedy is J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History and Distinguished Fellow of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University. He is author or editor of twenty books, the latest being Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II.