A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given.

The term General is used in two ways: as the generic title for all grades of general officer; and as a specific rank. Since the late twentieth century, the rank of General is usually the highest active rank of a military not at war.

All general officer ranks

The various grades of general officer are at the top of the rank structure. Lower-ranking officers are known as field officers or field-grade officers, and below them are company-grade officers. All officers who commanded more than a single regiment came to be known as "general officers". The word "general" is used in its ordinary sense in English (and other languages) as relating to larger, general, military units, rather than smaller units in particular.

Common systems

There are two common systems of general ranks.

Variations of one form, the old European system, were once used throughout Europe. It is used in the United Kingdom (although it did not originate there), from which it eventually spread to the Commonwealth and the United States of America. The General Officer ranks are named by prefixing General, as an adjective, with field officer ranks, although in some countries the highest general officers are titled Field Marshal or Marshal.

The other is derived from the French Revolution, where generals' ranks are named according to the unit they (theoretically) command.

Old European system {| style="border:1px solid #8888aa; background-color:#f7f8ff; padding:5px; font-size:95%; margin: 0px 12px 12px 0px;" |align="center"| Field Marshal or General Field Marshal |- |align="center"| ''Colonel General'' |- |align="center"| General or Captain General |- |align="center"| Lieutenant General |- |align="center"| Sergeant Major General or Major General |- |align="center"| ''Brigadier (General)'' |}

The system used either a ''brigadier general'' rank, or a ''colonel general'' rank (i.e. exclude one of the italicised ranks.)

The rank of field marshal was used by some countries as the highest rank, while in other countries it was used as a divisional or brigade rank. Many countries (notably pre-revolutionary France and eventually much of Latin America) actually used two brigade command ranks, which is why some countries now use two stars as their brigade general insignia. (Mexico and Argentina still use two brigade command ranks.)

In some nations (particularly in the Commonwealth), the equivalent to Brigadier General is Brigadier, which is not always considered by these armies to be a general officer rank, although it is always treated as equivalent to the rank of Brigadier General for comparative purposes. Unlike other general officers, the brigadier general rank is not derived from a ''field'' rank of brigadier.

The rank of ''major general'' is a shorter form of ''sergeant major general'', and is lower than lieutenant general as a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major, although outranked by a major.

French (Revolutionary) system {| style="border:1px solid #8888aa; background-color:#f7f8ff; padding:5px; font-size:95%; margin: 0px 12px 12px 0px;" |align="center"| Marshal |- |align="center"| Army General |- |align="center"| Corps General |- |align="center"| Divisional General |- |align="center"| Brigade General |} More information about this system can be found on the page: Général.

Other variations

Other nomenclatures for general officers include the titles and ranks:

Adjutant General

Commandant-General

Inspector General

Captain General

General-in-Chief

General of the Army (which is distinct from the title Army General)

General of the Air Force (USA only)

General of the Armies of the United States (of America), a title created for General John J. Pershing, and subsequently granted posthumously to George Washington.

General Admiral (German Navy)

Air General and Aviation General (Chilean Air Force; roughly equivalent to Air Chief Marshal and Air Vice-Marshal respectively)

Wing General and Group General (Mexican Air Force; roughly equivalent to Air Commodore and Acting Air Commodore respectively)

Lieutenant-Colonel General (A Serb rank immediately inferior to Colonel General, and roughly equivalent to Commonwealth/US Major General)

Director General (a common administrative term sometimes used as an appointment in military services)

Director General of National Defence (most senior rank in the Mexican Armed Forces)

Director of Intelligence Bureau (senior most 4 star Indian Police Service post in India)

Controller General (general officer rank in the French National Police)

Prefect General (the most senior rank of the Argentine Naval Prefecture)

Master-General of the Ordnance

In addition to militarily educated generals, there are also generals in medicine and engineering. The rank of most senior chaplain, Chaplain General, is also considered to be a general officer rank.

The specific General rank

In the Old European system, a General, without prefix or suffix (and sometimes referred to informally as a "full general"), is usually the most senior type of general, above Lieutenant General and directly below Field Marshal. Usually it is the most senior peace-time rank, with more senior ranks (for example, Field Marshal) being used only in wartime, or as honorary titles.

In some armies, however, the rank of Captain General, General of the Army, Army General or Colonel General occupied or occupies this position. Depending on circumstances and the army in question, these ranks may be considered to be equivalent to a full General or to a Field Marshal.

The rank of General came about as a "Captain-General", the captain of an army in general (i.e., the whole army). The rank of Captain-General began appearing around the time of the organization of professional armies in the 17th century. In most countries "Captain-General" contracted to just "General".

General ranks by country

The following articles deal with the rank of General, or its equivalent, as it is or was employed in the militaries of those countries.

General (Australia)

General (Canada)

Shang Jiang (China) - People's Republic of China (PRC) and Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan)

Kenraali (Finland)

Kindral (Estonia)

Général (France)

General (Germany)

Obergruppenführer (Nazi Germany, SS rank)

Strategos (Greece)

Aluf (Israel)

Generale (Italy)

Daejang (Korea - DPRK and ROK)

General (Mexico)

Generał (Poland)

Army General (Philippines)

Army General (Russia)

General (Sri Lanka)

General (Sweden)

General (Switzerland)

General (United Kingdom)

General (United States)

Army generals' insignia

Air force generals' insignia

Generals' insignia of disbanded armies

Air Force and Navy equivalents

Some countries (such as the United States) use the General Officer ranks for both the army and the air force; others only use the General Officer ranks for the army, while in the air force they use Air Officers as the equivalent of General Officers. They use the air force rank of Air Chief Marshal as the equivalent of the specific army rank of General. This latter group includes the British Royal Air Force and those based on it (e.g., India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Nigeria, etc.).

In most navies, Flag Officers are the equivalent of General Officers, and the naval rank of Admiral is equivalent to the specific army rank of General. A noteworthy historical exception was the Cromwellian naval rank ''General at sea''. In recent years in the American service there is a tendency to use ''Flag Officer'' and ''Flag Rank'' to refer to generals and admirals of the services collectively.

See also

Général

Generalissimo

List of comparative military ranks

List of Roman generals

Shogun

References

External links

Generals of World War II

Schema-root.org: US Generals News feeds for US Generals in the news

Marines.mil: General Officer Biographies Biographies of US Marine Corps General Officers

Bios & Information on Generals of Western History Information on 10 Generals who influenced Western History

Category:Generals Category:Military ranks

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Thomas Martin "Tom" Devine OBE FRSE FRHistS FBA (born 1945, Motherwell) is a Scottish historian. His main research interest is the history of the Scottish nation since c.1600 and its global connections and impact.

Tom Devine was educated at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, from 1964 to 1968, and graduated with first class honours in Economic and Social History, followed by a PhD and D.Litt. He rose through the academic ranks from assistant lecturer to Reader, Professor, Head of Department, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He was Deputy Principal of the University from 1993 until 1997. In 1998 he accepted the Directorship of the world's first Centre of advanced research in Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen (the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies), which was formally inaugurated by President Mary McAleese of Ireland on St Andrew's Day 1999. Over the following five years, over £2.5m were raised for the Centre's research programmes from AHRC - which led to the establishment of the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, funded competitively over 2 phases, - the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy, and a further £1.6m endowment gifted from the Glucksman family in the USA for a Research Chair in Irish and Scottish Studies, which Devine held as founding Professor until 2005.

In April 2005, he was appointed to the Sir William Fraser Chair of Scottish History and Palaeography at the University of Edinburgh, widely acknowledged as the world’s premier Chair of Scottish History, which he took up in January 2006. In 2008 he became Director of the Scottish Centre for Diaspora Studies at Edinburgh, established by an external endownment of £1 million pounds by a leading Scottish fund manager and his family. This is reckoned to be the single largest private donation ever made to a UK university for the development of historical studies.

He is the author or editor of some thirty books and numerous articles on topics such as emigration, famine, identity, Scottish transatlantic commercial links, urban history, the economic history of Scotland, Empire, the Scottish Highlands, the Irish in Scotland, sectarianism, stability and protest in the 18th century nation,Scottish elites, the Anglo-Scottish Union, rural social history and comparative Irish and Scottish relationships. ''The Scottish Nation'' (1999) became an international bestseller, selling nearly 100,000 copies to date in the UK alone. (and for a brief period even outselling the adventures of Harry Potter in Scotland!) Devine has won all three major prizes for Scottish historical research (Hume Brown, Saltire and Henry Duncan Prize and Lectureship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh), is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the British Academy: the only historian elected to all three national academies in the British Isles. Professor Devine holds the honorary degrees of D.Litt. from Queen's University Belfast and the University of Abertay Dundee and the hon. degree of D.Univ from Strathclyde. He was awarded the first John Aikenhead Medal for services to Scottish education by the Institute of Contemporary Scotland in 2006, and in the same year Bell College (now part of the University of the West of Scotland) conferred on him an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his contributions to Scottish culture. In 2000 he was awarded the Royal Gold Medal, Scotland's supreme academic accolade, by Queen Elizabeth II, the only historian winner to date, and in 2005 was appointed OBE in the New Years Honours List for 'services to Scottish history'. One of his recent books, ''Scotland's Empire 1600-1815 (2003)'' formed the basis of a six-part BBC2 series in 2005.

Tom Devine was a member of the Research Awards Advisory Committee of the Leverhulme Trust from 2003 to 2009 (adviser on all history fellowship applications) and holds Adjunct Professorships at the East Carolina University and the University of Guelph, Canada.He was Acting Head of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology from 2008 to 2009 in the University of Edinburgh. Devine has also been a Trustee of the National Museums of Scotland and a Member of Council of the British Academy.

See also

Thomas Martin Devine has been appointed to the Advisory Board of the - EUROCLIO.

Bibliography

'The Oxford Hanbook of Modern Scottish History 1500-2010(2012 jt editor)' 'Scotland and the British Empire(2011,jt editor)' 'To the Ends of the Earth : Scotland's Global Diaspora(2011)' 'Scotland and Poland : Historical Connections'(jt editor 2011)u )

''Scotland and the Union 1707 to 2007 (editor,2008)

''The Scottish Nation 1700 to 2007'' (rev ed. 2006)

''Clearance and Improvement: Land, Power and People in Scotland 1700-1900'' (2006)

''The Transformation of Scotland; The Economy since 1700'' (co-author with Clive Lee and George Peden), Edinburgh University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-7486-1433-8

''Scotland's Empire, 1600-1815'', Penguin Books, 2003

Being Scottish : Personal Reflections on Scottish Identity Today(co-editor with P Logue,Edinburgh University Press,2002.)

''Scotland's Shame?: Bigotry and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland'' (Editor), Mainstream Publishing, 2000 ISBN 1-84018-330-6

''The Scottish Nation: 1700-2000'', Penguin, 1999 ISBN 0-14-023004-1

Celebrating Columba : Irish-Scottish Connections 597-1997( ed.with JF McMillan,1999)

''People and society in Scotland 1760-1830'' (co-editor with R. Mitchison), John Donald, 1998

''Eighteenth-century Scotland'' (co-editor with J.R. Young), Tuckwell, 1998

''Scotland in the Twentieth Century'' (co-editor with Richard J. Finlay, Edinburgh University Press, 1996

''Exploring the Scottish Past'', 1995

St Mary's Hamilton : a Social History 1646 - 1996 (ed.1995)

''The Transformation of Rural Scotland: social change and the agrarian economy, 1660-1815'', 1994

Industry,Business and Society in Scotland since 1700 (ed. with AJG Cummings,1994)

''Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland, 1770-1914'', (Editor) 1994

''Scottish Elites'' 1994

''Clanship to Crofters' War'' (Manchester University Press, 1994)

''Scottish Emigration and Scottish Society'' (Editor), 1992

''Irish Immigrants and Scottish Society in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century'', (Editor), 1991.

''Conflict and Stability in Scottish Society, 1700-1850'' (Editor), 1990

Improvement and Enlightenment(1989)

''The Great Highland Famine'', 1988.

''People and Society in Scotland , Volume 1, 1760-1830'' (co-editor with R. Mitchison), 1988

''Farm Servants and Labour in Lowland Scotland 1770-1914'', 1984.

Scotland and Ireland 1600 to 1850 (joint ed. 1983)

''A Scottish firm in Virginia 1767-1777, William Cunninghame and Co.'', 1982.

''Lairds and Improvement in the Scotland of the Enlightenment'', 1978.

''The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow and their Trading Activities c. 1740-90'', 1975.

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Category:East Carolina University people Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh Category:Academics of the University of Aberdeen Category:Scottish historians Category:Scottish scholars and academics Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Motherwell

name	Erik Qualman
birth place	Detroit, MI
occupation	Author, Social Marketing
url	}}

Erik Qualman (born 1972) is an American author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, and is a speaker within the Internet community. In 2010, Socialnomics was a Book of the Year finalist as voted on by the American Marketing Association. . He is a columnist for Search Engine Watch and ClickZ Magazine.

Background

Qualman was born and grew up outside of Detroit, Michigan in Rochester Hills. He attended Michigan State University receiving a BA in Marketing. While at Michigan State (1990–1994) he was named Academic All-Big 10 for Basketball. Qualman also holds an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas (1999). In 2011 Qualman gave the keynote address to the McCombs graduating class on the Austin, Texas campus.

He is currently the Global Vice President of Digital Marketing for EF Education headquartered in Lucerne, Switzerland and a Professor of Digital Marketing for Hult International Business School's Masters program. Prior to joining EF Education and Hult, Qualman worked in online marketing and eBusiness functions at Cadillac & Pontiac (1994–97), AT&T (1998–2000), Yahoo (2000–03), EarthLink (2003–05) and Travelzoo (Head of Marketing 2005-08).

Qualman was a featured speaker at BookExpo America 2009, presenting to those in attendance on how social media is transforming the way people live and do business. Qualman also was the keynote speaker at Europe's Fiber To The Home (FTTH) Council Meeting in Lisbon, alongside the Prime Minister of Portugal Jose Socrates. The 2009 FTTH keynote speaker was Don Tapscott.

Qualman has been highlighted in Mashable, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, Forbes, and The Huffington Post He has also been interviewed on radio and television discussing his view on digital trends.

Books

Crisis by Erik Qualman

Socialnomics by Erik Qualman

References

Category:Living people Category:1972 births Category:American writers Category:Michigan State University alumni Category:McCombs School of Business alumni