Biography
I am a Professor of History at the University of Waterloo, where I specialize in Modern U.S. Cultural and Social History. My research interests include the history of American popular culture (including film, television, music, and print culture), Cold War culture, advertising and consumerism, social protest movements, the Sixties, and modern American conservatism and liberalism. My books include The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (New York University Press, 1999), David Dellinger: The Life and Times of a Nonviolent Revolutionary (New York University Press, 2006), The 1980s: A Social History (ABC-CLIO Press, 2009), We Begin Bombing in Five Minutes: Cold War Culture Wars in the Age of Reagan (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021), and Beatlemania in America: Fan Culture From Below (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023). I’m also an avid fiction writer, and I’ve published three novels: City of Saints (Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press, 2012), A Killing in Zion (Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press, 2015), and Desolation Flats (Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press, 2016). These days, I’m at work on a project about the innovative contributions of Jewish film directors to cinema in the 1960s.
Education
- B.A. University of Utah
- PhD University of Utah
Research and teaching interests
- 1960s and 1970s
- American film
- American radicalism
- Anticommunism
- Conservatism and Liberalism
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History and the internet
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Los Angeles history
- Nonviolence
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Popular culture
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Postwar consumerism
- Social protest movements
- The Vietnam War
Courses taught
- HIST 105: Rock 'n' Roll & United States History
- HIST 120: The United States at War, 1861-1865
- HIST 216: The American West: Legend & Reality
- HIST 220: The Vietnam War & American Society
- HIST 257: America to 1877
- HIST 258: The United States Since 1877
- HIST 314: Freedom Struggle: The American Civil Rights Movement
- HIST 409A: Senior Seminar in U.S. History
- HIST 409B: Senior Research Seminar in U.S. History
- HIST 632: MA Seminar in U.S. History
- HIST 633: MA Research Seminar in U.S. History
Recent publications
- The 1980s: A social history, co-autored with Peter Halloran (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Press, 2009).
- David Dellinger: The life and times of a nonviolent revolutionary (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
- The turning: A history of Vietnam veterans against the war (New York: New York University Press, 1999).
Awards and acheivements
- Distinguished Teaching Award, University of Waterloo, 2005
Professional affiliations
- Regular columnist for Waterloo Region Record (politics and world affairs)