Hattendorf holds degrees in history from
Kenyon College (1964),
Brown University (1971), and the
University of Oxford, where he completed his D.Phil. in war history at
Pembroke College in 1979. A U.S. naval officer during the Vietnam War era (1965-1973), he served at sea in three destroyers and earned a commendation from the Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet, for his combat service. Ashore, he served as an officer at the Naval History Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and at the Naval War College. As a civilian academic, he has been visiting professor at the
National University of Singapore, a visiting scholar at the
German Armed Forces Military History Research Office, and visiting fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford University. He is author or editor, co-author or co-editor, of more than 40 books and numerous articles in the field of maritime history, including being editor-in-chief of the multivolume
Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (2007), which was awarded the
Dartmouth Medal of the American Library Association in 2008. His most recent work is a three-volume series on
U.S. Naval Strategy: Selected Documents from the 1970s through the 1990s. His scholarship has been recognized with the award of an honorary doctorate of humane letters, the
Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and the K. Jack Bauer Award from the North American Society for Oceanic History. In 2009, the Navy League of the United States awarded him its
Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement and the USS
Constitution Museum Foundation awarded him its
Samuel Eliot Morison Award.
Additionally, Hattendorf has served on the
Secretary of the Navy’s Advisory Subcommittee for Naval History from 2003 to 2008. He was its vice-chairman in 2005, then chairman for three years, 2006-2008. For “superb management abilities, innovative thinking, and outstanding leadership during his tenure” as chairman, he was awarded the Department of the Navy Superior Civilian Service Award. He is the immediate past-President of the
North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH), the national organization for historians, museum, archives, and library professionals in the broad field of maritime history. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Canadian Forces College. He is a Fellow of the
Royal Historical Society in England and has been a member of Council of the
Navy Records Society in the UK, corresponding member in the USA for the
Society of Nautical Research (UK), a former vice president of the
Hakluyt Society, founding president of the American Friends of the Hakluyt Society, and an honorary corresponding member of the
Royal Swedish Society for Nautical Sciences, the
Académie du Var in France, and the Portuguese Navy’s
Academia de Marinha.