Michael Roberts (historian)

Michael Roberts (1908–1996) was an English historian specializing in the early modern period. He was particularly known for his studies of Swedish history.

Roberts was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire and educated at Brighton College, and Worcester College, Oxford. He taught at Rhodes University College in Grahamstown, South Africa from 1935, served in the army in East Africa during World War II, and headed the British Council in 1944–46. From 1954 until his retirement in 1973, he was professor of modern history at the Queen's University of Belfast. He also held guest professorships in U.S. universities. He was a member of the British Academy and the Royal Irish Academy.

Roberts is chiefly known as the originator of the theory of a "Revolution in Military Affairs" or RMA, which he first presented in a paper entitled "The Military Revolution: 1560-1660" in a lecture at the Queen's university of Belfast in 1955. This theory holds that certain changes in military tactics and technology led to a revolutionary new method of waging war that made combat more decisive.

Although originally working in the area of British history, Roberts soon gained an interest in the history of Sweden and learnt Swedish prior to 1940. He made his most significant contributions on the period from the late 16th to the early 18th century when Sweden was a major player on the European political and military scene, but published several studies on later periods in both Swedish and British history. Some of his works on Swedish history are used as textbooks in Swedish universities and several have also been translated into Swedish. In addition, he proposed the concept of a 'military revolution' in the early modern Europe - an idea that, with modification, is still used by historians.

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