Senior Lecturer in American History
Co-editor, The Historical Journal
Trinity Lane
Cambridge CB2 1TL
Subject groups/Research projects
Departments and Institutes
Research Interests
I specialize in the history of American foreign relations, broadly defined, and examine the applications of American power abroad, primarily towards the nations and peoples of East and Southeast Asia since 1890s. But my teaching and research interests also lie in the intersections between the national and the international, the foreign and the domestic, especially the influence domestic politics and culture - particularly religion - have had on the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.
Research Supervision
I am happy to supervise MPhil and PhD dissertations on most aspects of American political, religious, and foreign relations history in any period since the Civil War.
Teaching
In Part I, Paper 24 (US History since 1865) and Themes and Sources Option vi (American Perspectives on East and Southeast Asia). I am also Part II Director of Studies in History at Clare.
Other Professional Activities
In addition to my scholarly work, my writing has appeared in the Toronto Globe & Mail, History Today, the Boston Globe, Religion & Politics, Politico, the TLS, and ForeignAffairs.com. I sit on the editorial boards of Diplomatic History, History, and Diplomacy & Statecraft, and was elected to serve on the Executive Council of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).
Key Publications
Books
- American Foreign Relations: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.
- Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. New York: Knopf, 2012.
- Nixon in the World: U.S. Foreign Relations, 1969-1977. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (co-editor, with Fredrik Logevall).
- The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Articles and Book Chapters
- “Peripheral Visions: American Mainline Protestants and the Global Cold War.” Cold War History, in press, forthcoming 2013.
- “Tempered by the Fires of War: Vietnam and the Transformation of the Evangelical Worldview.” In In and of the Times: New Perspectives on American Evangelicalism and the 1960s, ed. Axel R. Schäfer. Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, in press, forthcoming 2013.
- “Evangelical Internationalism: A Conservative Worldview for the Age of Globalization.” In The Right Side of the Sixties: Reexamining Conservatism’s Decade of Transformation, ed. Laura Jane Gifford and Daniel K. Williams. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012: 221-240.
- “The Spirit of Democracy: Religious Liberty and American Anti-Communism during the Cold War.” In Uncertain Empire: American History and the Idea of the Cold War, ed. Joel Isaac and Duncan Bell. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012: 141-163.
- “Introduction: The Religious Cold War.” In Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective, ed. Philip Muehlenbeck. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2012: xi-xxii.
- “Faith and Empire: American Missionaries, Humanitarianism, and the Spread of Human Rights.” In Civil Religion, Human Rights and International Relations: Connecting People Across Cultures and Traditions, ed. Helle Porsdam. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2012: 99-117.
- “Decisions for War.” In A Companion to Lyndon B. Johnson, ed. Mitchell B. Lerner. Malden, Mass. and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012: 321-335.
- “John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.” In Mental Maps in the Early Cold War Era, 1945-68, ed. Steven Casey and Jonathan Wright. New York and Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011: 261-280.
- “Universal Nationalism: Christian America’s Response to the Years of Upheaval.” In The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective, ed. Niall Ferguson, Charles S. Maier, Erez Manela, and Daniel J. Sargent. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010: 306-318.
- “The Deeper Roots of Faith and Foreign Policy.” International Journal 65:2 (Spring 2010): 451-462.
- “The Politics of Realism and Religion: Christian Responses to Bush’s New World Order.” Diplomatic History 34:1 (January 2010): 95-118.
- “Religion and World Order at the Dawn of the American Century.” In The US Public and American Foreign Policy, ed. Andrew Johnstone and Helen Laville. New York and London: Routledge, 2010: 73-86.
- “Reviving Religion in the History of American Foreign Relations.” In God and Global Order: The Power of Religion in American Foreign Policy, ed. Jonathan Chaplin and Robert Joustra. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2010: 25-44.
- “A Fine Balance: The Evolution of the National Security Adviser.” In Rethinking Leadership And “Whole Of Government” National Security Reform: Problems, Progress, And Prospects, ed. Joseph R. Cerami and Jeffrey A. Engel. Carlisle, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2010: 127-148.
- “A Game of Cold War Chess: Kennedy, Forrestal, and the Problem of Laos in the War for Vietnam.” In L’Échec de la paix en Indochine/The Failure of Peace in Indochina, ed. Christopher Goscha and Karine Laplante. Paris: Les Indes Savantes, 2010: 237-254.
- “The Death of a Peculiar Special Relationship: Myron Taylor and the Religious Roots of America’s Cold War.” In America’s Special Relationships: Foreign and Domestic Aspects of the Politics of Alliance, ed. John Dumbrell and Axel Schäfer. New York and London: Routledge, 2009: 202-216.
- “The Iraq War as Contemporary History.” International History Review 30:4 (December 2008): 796-808.
- “Bridging the Gap between Church and State in the History of American Foreign Relations.” Diplomatic History 30:5 (November 2006): 783-812.