Karl Anthony Hack (born 19 July 1966) is a British historian and academic, who specialises in the history of Southeast Asia, the British Empire, and of insurgency and counter-insurgency. Drawing on interviews with insurgents, his work has demonstrated the precise role of high-level coercion in winning post-war counter-insurgencies, and explored extreme violence and violence limitation. He has also carried out a wide range of public work, ranging across heritage, memory, the media and the courts. Since 2016, he has been the inaugural Head of the School of History, Religious Studies, Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology at The Open University. Prior to joining The Open University in 2006, he taught at the National Institute of Education, at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, f