David Greenberg

  Archives of Published Writings by David Greenberg

David Greenberg writes about history, politics, and media for a variety of scholarly and popular publications. He is the author of Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency (2016); Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image (2003); Calvin Coolidge (2006); and Presidential Doodles (2006).

Liberties

“The War on Objectivity in American Journalism,” Liberties, Spring 2022.
“Naming Names,” Liberties, Winter 2021.

Politico

“Ken Starr: The Man Who Created the Lewinsky Scandal,” Politico Magazine, September 18, 2022.
“Why We’re Still Obsessed with Watergate,” Politico Magazine, June 19, 2022.
“The History of Tying Up Traffic for Civil Rights,” Politico Magazine, February 26, 2022.
“Bob Moses: A Civil Rights Leader With a Second Act,” Politico Magazine, December 27, 2021.
“How George Shultz Escaped Two Scandal-Plagued Administrations Unscathed,” Politico Magazine, February 9, 2021.
“What Will Trump’s Presidency Mean to History?” Politico Magazine, January 17, 2021.
“John Lewis: A Civil Rights Legend Who Saw Humanity in His Oppressors,” Politico Magazine, December 26, 2020.
“The Political Scientist Who Warned Us About Polls,” Politico Magazine, November 4, 2020.
“The Time Nixon’s Cronies Tried to Overturn a Presidential Election,” Politico Magazine, October 10, 2020.
“What We’ve Learned from 101 Years of American Unrest,” Politico Magazine, July 12, 2020.
“The New York Times Used to Be a Model of Diverse Opinion. What Happened?” Politico Magazine, June 14, 2020.
“Spin Won’t Save Trump,” Politico Magazine, April 5, 2020.
“What Trump Can Learn From Woodrow Wilson,” Politico Magazine, March 30, 2020.
“Could Trump Try to Cancel the 2020 Election?” Politico Magazine, March 18, 2020.”
“Nathan Glazer: The Public Intellectual Who Kept an Open Mind,” Politico Magazine, December 29, 2019.
“How Will History Books Remember the 2010s?” Politico Magazine, December 27, 2019.
“Stop Comparing Trump’s Impeachment Case to Johnson’s … or Nixon’s … or Clinton’s,” Politico Magazine, September 28, 2019.
“How to Make Sense of the Shocking New MLK Documents,” Politico Magazine, June 4, 2019.
“From Divorce to Blackface: A Short History of Political Taboos,” Politico Magazine, February 10, 2019.
“When Impeachment Works, and When It Doesn’t,” Politico Magazine, January 20, 2019.
“William Goldman: The Writer Who Brought Watergate to the Screen, 1931-2018,” Politico Magazine, December 30, 2018.
“Is History Being Too Kind to George Bush?” Politico Magazine, December 1, 2018.”
“America’s Forgotten Pogroms,” Politico Magazine, November 2, 2018.
“The Time a President Stoked a Protest So He Could Play the ‘Law and Order’ Card,” Politico Magazine, October 28, 2018.
“The End of Neutrality,” Politico Magazine, September/October 2018.
“Stop Talking About the 25th Amendment. It Won’t Work on Trump,” with Rebecca Lubot. Politico Magazine, September 8, 2018.
“How Supreme Court Nominations Lost Their Apolitical Pretense,” Politico Magazine, July 30, 2018.
“Here’s What Happened the Last Time the Left Got Nasty,” Politico Magazine, July 5, 2018.
“The Forgotten Political Genius of Philip Roth,” Politico Magazine, June 1, 2018.
“TV Gave Us the Modern State of the Union. Then It Killed It.” Politico Magazine, January 30, 2018.
“What Happens When Americans Try to Psychoanalyze Their Leaders,” Politico Magazine, January 13, 2018.
“Was 2017 the Craziest Year in U.S. Political History?” Politico Magazine, December 29, 2017.
“Why We Shouldn’t Let the #Me Too Movement Change History,” Politico Magazine, December 16, 2017.
“What Politicos Are Reading This Summer,” Politico Magazine, July 17, 2017.
“America’s 100 Other Declarations of Independence,” Politico Magazine, July 4, 2017.
“Why So Many Critics Hate the New Obama Biography,” Politico Magazine, June 19, 2017.
“Watergate Fueled Conspiracy Theories, Too,” Politico Magazine, June 17, 2017.
“The Crackpot Theories of Stephen Bannon’s Favorite Authors,” Politico Magazine, April 20, 2017.
“The Perils of Calling Trump a Liar,” Politico Magazine, January 28, 2017.
“Was Obama a Transformational President?” Politico Magazine, January 21, 2017.
“Remembering John McLaughlin,” Politico Magazine, December 31, 2016.
“An Intellectual History of Trumpism,” Politico Magazine, December 11, 2016.
“The Worst Convention in U.S. History?” Politico Magazine, July 22, 2016.
“How Roger Ailes Created Modern Conservatism,” Politico Magazine, July 20, 2016.
“Lessons from 1912: Why Trumpmania Probably Won’t Last,” Politico Magazine, March 31 2016.
“Lessons from 1912,” Politico, March 31, 2016.
“FDR’s Nate Silver,” Politico, January 16, 2016.
“Remembering Mario Cuomo,” Politico, December 29, 2015.
“The Great Renaming Craze of 2015,” Politico, December 28, 2015.
“Henry Kissinger: Good or Evil?: 10 Historians Assess the Controversial Statesman’s Legacy,” Politico, October 10, 2015.
“Can Bernie Keep Socialism Alive?” Politico Magazine, September/October 2015.
“Hillary’s Too Fake. Donald’s Too Real,” Politico Magazine, July 26, 2015.
“Keep Andrew Jackson on the $20,” Politico Magazine, June 14, 2015.

Slate

“What We Lost with the Loss of The New Republic,” Slate, December 5, 2014.
“Stop Eulogizing Gore Vidal,” Slate, August 2, 2012.
“Dorothy Burlingham’s Twins” (with Maida Greenberg), Slate, August 25, 2011.
“Beware the Military-Industrial Complex,” Slate, January 14, 2011.
“The Hidden History of the Espionage Act,” Slate, December 27, 2010.
“Give ‘Em Hell, Barry,” Slate, November 19, 2010.
“Hating Woodrow Wilson,” Slate, October 22, 2010.
“Rewinding the Kennedy-Nixon Debates,” Slate, September 24, 2010.
“Too Big to Fail, the 1912 Version,” Slate, July 15, 2010.
“Elana Kagan Could Have Been a Superb Historian,” (with Tony Michels), Slate, May 21, 2010.
“Obama’s Achilles’ Heel,” Slate, January 29, 2010.
“Palin=Quayle,” Slate, November 17, 2009.
“The Obama Haters: Reflections on the Paranoid Style,” Slate, September 23, 2009.
“The Riddle of Herbert Hoover.” Review of Herbert Hoover by William Leuchtenburg, Slate, January 19, 2009.
“Specter’s Shadow,” Slate, April 29, 2009.
“Cheney’s Handiwork.” Review of The Angler, by Barton Gellman, Slate, October 3, 2008.
“The Lincoln-Douglas Debates Unplugged.” Review of Lincoln and Douglas: The Debates that Defined America , by Allen C. Guelzo, Slate, April 7, 2008 .
“Who’s Afraid of Socialized Medicine?” Slate, October 8, 2007 .
“Reagan in 100 Pages,” Slate, September 5, 2007 .
“My Vote Means Nothing,” Slate, June 12, 2007 .
“How Presidential Primaries Backfired,” Slate, June 11, 2007 .
“The Lamont Question,” Slate, August 16, 2006.
“Class Warfare.” Review of The History Boys , by Alan Bennett. Slate , July 24, 2006.
“That Barnes & Noble Dream,” Slate, May 17, 2005.

Newspapers

“Yes, It Was Trump’s Fault. But Others Are Also to Blame for the Deadly Capitol Hill Riot,” New Jersey Star Ledger, January 7, 2021.
Review of Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, by Evan Osnos, Washington Post, October 23, 2020.
Review of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life, by Jonathan Alter, New York Times Book Review, October 1, 2020.
“Why Biden’s VP Pick Is Different from Any Other,” Washington Post, August 7, 2020.
“‘Invictus’ Was among John Lewis’s Favorite Poems. It Captures his Indomitable Spirit,” Washington Post, July 18, 2020.
“Trump’s State of the Union Won’t Matter,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2020.
Review of The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate, by Tom Brokaw, and The Impeachment Diary, by James Reston, Jr. Washington Post, November 15, 2019.
“When Should Republicans Jump Ship?” Washington Post, November 3, 2019.
“Was Michael Bloomberg New York City’s Greatest Mayor?,” review of The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg, by Eleanor Randolph, New York Times Book Review,  September 10, 2019.
“Stop Calling Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Liberals: The Danger of Confusing Liberals and Leftists,” Washington Post, September 12, 2019.
“The Joe Biden Media Frenzy,” New York Times, April 3, 2019.
“Socialists Are No Strangers to Congress,” Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2019.
“How the Democrats Can Avoid Debate Chaos,” New York Times, December 20, 2018.
“The True Grit of Four American Presidents,” review of Leadership: In Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, New York Times Book Review September 14, 2018.
“A Half Century of ‘Liberal Media Bias,’” Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2018.
“The Left’s Misleading Attacks on Liberal Democrats,” Washington Post, August 16, 2018.
“A Breezy Memoir on White House Zaniness and Twitter Dangers,” review of Yes We (Still) Can, by Dan Pfeiffer, Washington Post, July 15, 2018.
“How We Balance Our Right to Privacy with Our Collective Need for Information,” review of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America, by Sarah E. Igo, Washington Post, June 8, 2018.
“Truth Isn’t Always as Firm as We Think It Is,” review of Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality, by Hector Macdonald, Washington Post, March 9, 2018.
“Trump’s Dreaming of a White Man’s Christmas,” Newark Star-Ledger, December 15, 2017.
“The March on the Pentagon: An Oral History,” New York Times, October 20, 2017.
“The Vietnam War, Then and Now,” review of The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, by Geoffrey Ward and Ken Burns New York Times Book Review, September 14, 2017.
“Better Spin Doctors Can’t Save Trump,” Washington Post, August 2, 2017.
“What Roger Ailes Learned from Richard Nixon,” New York Times, May 18, 2017.
“Trump Is Mirroring Nixon’s Final Days,” Washington Post, May 10, 2017.
“Trump’s 100 Days: A Meaningless Marker That Obsesses News Media,” Orlando Sentinel, April 26, 2017.
“The Burden of One-Party Government,” Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2017.
“Why the Democrats Don’t Need an Overhaul,” Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2016.
“Students Are Shouting Down Pro-Israel Speakers—and Silencing Free Speech” (with Cary Nelson), Washington Post, December 7, 2016.
“In Defense of Political Spin,” Washington Post, November 11, 2016.
“La Discreta Revolución de un President,” El Pais, October 28, 2016.
“Trump’s Attitude Is not ‘Unprecedented.’ Nixon Was a Sore Loser, Too,” Washington Post, October 26, 2016.
“Arrogance, recklessness and scorn for ideas — no, not Trump. George W. Bush,” review of Bush, by Jean Edward Smith, Washington Post, June 20, 2016.
“The Last Great Republican Rupture,” Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2016.

“Five Myths About Political Spin,” Washington Post, March 20, 2016.
“The Art of Spin: Pulling Victory from New Hampshire’s Jaws of Defeat,” Reuters, February 11, 2016.
“Don’t Be Fooled by Trump or Sanders – There Is No Such Thing as an ‘Authentic’ Candidate,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2016.
“Why Spin Is Good for Democracy,” New York Times, January 14, 2016.
“A Century of Political Spin,” Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2016.
“A History of Errors on the Campaign Trail,” New York Times online (“Room for Debate”), June 3, 2015.
“Recurring Nightmare,” review of Being Nixon by Evan Thomas, and One Man Against the World, by Tim Weiner, New York Times Book Review, July 19, 2015.
“And Christie Makes 16,” Reuters, June 30, 2015.
“We’re All Populists Now,” Washington Post, May 15, 2015.
Review of George W. Bush, by James Mann, Washington Post, February 6, 2015.
“Books on Tapes.” Review of Chasing Shadows by Ken Hughes, and The Nixon Tapes, ed. Douglas Brinkley and Luke Nichter, Washington Post, August 3, 2014.
“Bygone Bipartisanship.” Review of Tip and the Gipper, by Chris Matthews. New York Times Book Review, November 24, 2013.
Review of The Kennedy Half-Century by Larry J. Sabato, Washington Post, October 25, 2013.
“Borking Before Bork,” New York Times, December 20, 2012.
“Standing Pat.” Review of Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life, by Ann Beattie, New York Times Book Review, November 20, 2011.
“Abraham to Zachary.” Review of Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians, by Robert W. Merry, New York Times Book Review, September 30, 2012.
Review of First Cameraman: Documenting the Obama Presidency in Real Time, by Arun Chaudhary, Washington Post, August 26, 2012.
“Americans Gambled on Greed—and Lost.” Review of The Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present, by Jeff Madrick, Washington Post, July 29, 2011.
“Caro Goes to Extremes in Subjective Take on LBJ,” Review of The Passage of Power by Robert Caro, Washington Post, May 2, 2012.
“White House Christmas Cards: Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2011.
“Spin You Can Believe In.” Review of The Audacity to Win, by David Plouffe, Washington Post, December 6, 2009.
“G.O.P. vs. World,” New York Times, June 29, 2011.
“No Exit: Why Last Chapters Disappoint,” New York Times Book Review, March 18, 2011.
“Sweet Land of Liberty—and Empire.” Review of The Two Faces of American Freedom, by Aziz Rana, Washington Post, November 14, 2010.
“A Historic Scandal, Free of Bias.” Review of The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, by Ken Gormley, Washington Post, February 21, 2010.
“The Supreme Court Kabuki Dance,” Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2009.
“The Cold War Duel That Never Dies.” Review of Alger Hiss and the Battle for History by Susan Jacoby, Washington Post, May 31, 2009.
“The Rough Road to the Supreme Court,” Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2009.
“The Folly of the Hundred Days,” Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2009.
“When Inaugural Speeches Work,” Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2009.
“Fearless Leader.” Review of Nothing to Fear, by Adam Cohen and FDR v. The Constitution, by Burt Solomon, New York Times Book Review, January 18, 2009.
“Assessing Joe Biden,” Washington Post, August 24, 2008.
“The Plight of the Lame Duck,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2008.
“Five Myths About the Vice Presidency,” Washington Post, June 1, 2008.
“Five Myths About the Vice Presidency,” Washington Post, June 1, 2008.
“Tribe of Scribes.” Review of White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters , by Robert Schlesinger, Washington Post , May 18, 2008 .
“The Age of Reagan.” Review of The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008, by Sean Wilentz, Los Angeles Times , May 18, 2008 .
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Speeches,” New York Times, February 24, 2008 .
“R, North Carolina.” Review of Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism, by William A. Link, New York Times Book Review, February 10, 2008 .
“Why Obamamania? Because He Runs as the Great White Hope,”Washington Post , January 13, 2008 .
“Rudy a Lefty? Yeah, Right.” Washington Post , October 28, 2007 .
“Not So Fast,” Boston Globe, July 29, 2007 .
“Exorcising Nixon’s Ghost,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 2007 .
“Bush Wars: The Final Frontier,” New York Times Select , May 22, 2007 .
“How Bush Stayed True to Conservatism,” New York Times Select, May 15, 2007 .
“Sitting Out the Tennessee Waltz,” New York Times Select , May 8, 2007 .
“In Nixon’s Tricks, Rove’s Roots and a Blueprint for Bush,” New York Times Select, May 1, 2007 .
“Our Zero-Tolerance Society,” Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2007 .
A Massachusetts Conservative,” Boston Globe , February 11, 2007 .
“The Goal: Admitting Failure, Without Being a Failure,” The New York Times, January 14, 2007.
“Nothing Perks Up a President Like Death ,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2007.
“At Least He’s Not Nixon,” Washington Post, December 3, 2006.
“Doodle Bug,” Times of London, November 19. 2006.
“Even Presidents Doodle,” Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2006.
“Spin Doctors,” Review of The Greatest Story Ever Sold, by Frank Rich.Washington Post, September 24, 2006.
“A Provocative Look at the Images of 9/11,” Chicago Tribune, September 10, 2006.
“For Bush, Hope and Fear in Lessons of Midterms Past,” New York Times, September 3, 2006.
“Party of One,” Boston Globe , July 30, 2006 . [On Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Party.]
“The Choice,” Boston Globe, May 21, 2006. [On the Democrats’ foreign policy rift.]
“Attack Secrets, not Leaks,” Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2005.
“The ‘Non-Political’ Nomination Game,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2005.
“Mr. Nice Guy,” Boston Globe, July 24, 2005. [Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts.

Magazines

Review of Rigged, by David Shimer, Yale Alumni Magazine, January/February 2021
Review of The World Is Always Coming to an End, by Carlo Rotella, Yale Alumni Magazine, Jan/Feb 2020.
Review of Field of Blood, by Joanne Freeman, Yale Alumni Magazine, January/February, 2019.
Review of Trumpocracy, by David Frum, Yale Alumni Magazine, May/June 2018.
Review of Bill Clinton, by Michael Tomasky, Washington Monthly, Spring 2017.
“Trump’s Media War,” American Prospect, Spring 2017.
“The 100 Days Myth,” U.S. News and World Report, October 14, 2016.
Review of Ronald Reagan, by Jacob Weisberg, Yale Alumni Magazine, March/April 2016.
“A Brief History of Hating Washington,” Washingtonian, March 2016.
“The Front-Runner Fallacy: Why the First Presidential Polls Are So Often Wrong,” The Atlantic, December 2015.
Review of Ronald Reagan, by Jacob Weisberg, Yale Alumni Magazine, March/April 2016.
“The Campus War over Israel,” review of The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, Cary Nelson and Gabriel Noah Brahm, eds., Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Summer 2015.
“53 Historians Weigh In on Barack Obama’s Legacy,” New York, January 12-25, 2015.
“Truth in Politics Now,” review of The New Censorship by Joel Simon, Censors at Work, by Robert Darnton, and 935 Lies, by Charles Lewis, The American Prospect, Winter 2015.
“100 Thinkers Who Have Defined Out Century,” The New Republic, November 24, 2014.
“Incredibly Guilty,” review of The Nixon Defense, by John W. Dean, The New Republic, October 27, 2014.
“Strategy and Bigotry,” review of The Kennan Diaries, ed. by Frank Costigliola, The New Republic, April 21, 2014.
“JFK, Unapologetic Liberal,” The New Republic, November 25, 2013.
“Agit-Prof,” review of Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left, by Martin Duberman, The New Republic, March 25, 2013.
“The Myth of Second-Term Failure,” The New Republic, December 6, 2012.
“Richard Nixed,” The New Republic, June 28, 2012.
“The Romance of Realism.” Review of Eisenhower in War and Peace, by Jean Edward Smith, The New Republic, May 24, 2012.
“Obama’s a Liberal-He Should Talk Like One,” The New Republic, March 9, 2012.
“Nixon Speaks,” The Chronicle Review (The Chronicle of Higher Education, Section B), November 25, 2011.
“Sex and the Married Politician,” The Atlantic Monthly, October 2011.
“The Commentary Man,” Review of Norman Podhoretz: A Biography, by Thomas L. Jeffers and Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left into the Neoconservative Right, by Benjamin Balint, Moment, September/October 2010.
“The Honeymooners: Obama at One Year,” The Atlantic Monthly, January 2010.
“Bushed,” The New Republic, September 24, 2008.
“The Other Women.” Review of Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life, by Joseph Persico, New York Times Book Review, June 8, 2008.
“Double Negative: The Return of Doughface Liberalism,” The New Republic, April 9, 2008 .
“Zealots of Our Time.” Review of They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, by Jacob Heilbrunn, American Prospect, March, 2008.
Why Conservatives Hate Bush,” Washington Monthly, December 2007.
“It’s a Reprieve, Not a Pardon,” Washington Monthly, December 2006.
Review of The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff,American Prospect, December 2006.
“All the President’s Doodles: A History in Sketches,” The Atlantic Monthly, September 2006.
“The Forgotten Image-Meister.” A review of The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton and the Making of Modern America by Richard M. Fried.The Washington Monthly April 2006.
“Beyond Deep Throat,” Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2005.
“Red Parallels,” Review of The Age of Anxiety, by Haynes Johnson,American Prospect, November, 2005.
“Only Yesterday.” Review of More Equal Than Others: America from Nixon to the New Century, by Godfrey Hodgson; and Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore, by James T. Patterson. American Prospect, October 2005.
“The Watergate Papers.” The Alcalde, May/June 2005.
“The Triumph of Anything Goes,” Washington Monthly, September 2004.

Journals

“Naming Names,” Liberties, Vol. 1, No. 2, Winter 2021, pp. 321-343.
Review of Democracy and Truth: A Short History, by Sophia Rosenfeld, Journal of American History, Spring 2020.
“Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and a Liberalism Without Illusions,” Raritan, Vol. 38, No. 1, Summer 2018, pp. 117-139.
“An Intellectual History of Trumpism: Populism, Paleoconservatism and the Ideas Behind a Republican Insurgency,” Pacific and American Studies Vol. 18, March 2018, pp. 7-17.
Review of Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian, by Richard Aldous in The Historian 81:1, Spring 2019, pp. 145-146.
Review of Eleven Presidents: Promises vs. Results in Achieving Limited Government, by Ivan Eland in Political Science Quarterly, Winter 2018-19, pp. 784-86.
Review of The Ideas Industry by Daniel W. Drezner, and The Death of Expertise, by Tom Nichols, H-DIPLO, June 8, 2018.
Review of Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism, by Lucas Graves in Journal of Communication, December 2017.
Review of Recapturing the Oval Office: New Historical Approaches to the American Presidency, ed., Brian Balogh and Bruce J. Schulman, in Journal of American History, March 2017.
Review of Deceit on the Road to War: Presidents, Politics, and American Democracy, by John M. Schuessler, for H-DIPLO. July 2016.
“Spinning with Obama,” Dissent 62:4 (Fall 2015), pp. 122-134.
“Lippmann vs. Mencken: Debating Democracy,” Raritan, 32:2 (Winter 2012), pp. 117-140.
“Theodore Roosevelt and the Image of Presidential Activism,” Social Research: An International Quarterly, Winter 2011.
“Beyond the Bully Pulpit: Teddy Roosevelt, Father of Spin,” Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2011.
“The Republican Flight from Reality,” Raritan, Winter 2010.
“Torchlight Parades for the Media Age: The Presidential Debates as Political Ritual,” Daedalus, Spring 2009.
“Accentuating the Negative,” Dissent, Spring 2009.
“The Idea of ‘The Liberal Media’ and Its Roots in the Civil Rights Movement,” The Sixties, Vol. 2, No. 1, Winter 2008-09.
“The Entwined Lives and Psyches of Richard Nixon and Alger Hiss,”Clio’s Psyche. Fall 2007.
“Richard Hofstadter Reconsidered,” Raritan . Fall 2007.
“Reading the Candidates,” Dissent, Fall 2007.
“Nixon in American Memory,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Issue 39, Spring 2007.
Review of Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger,by Bruce Kuklick. Political Science Quarterly, Spring 2007.
Review of To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, by Richard J. Ellis. Political Science Quarterly, Spring 2006.
“Fawn Brodie and Richard Nixon: The Perils of Psychobiography,”Clio’s Psyche. June 2006.
Review of Richard Nixon and the Quest for a New Majority , by Robert Mason. Journal of American History, December 2005.
Review of 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft, and Debs–the Election That Changed the Country, by James Chace. New-York Journal of American History, Fall 2004.
Review of The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, by John Lewis Gaddis. New-York Journal of American History, Fall 2003.
“Richard the Bleeding Hearted.” Review of Nixon and the Environment, by J. Brooks Flippen; In Search of Deep Throat: The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time, by Leonard Garment; President Nixon: Alone in the White House, by Richard Reeves; The Presidency of Richard Nixon, by Melvin Small; and Arrogance of Power , by Anthony Summers.Reviews in American History , March 2002.
Review of Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalismfrom Reagan to Clinton, by Kenneth Baer. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Autumn 2001.
“The Empire Strikes Out.” Review of Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War, by Frances FitzGerald, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2000.

Book Chapters

“The Misanthropy Diaries: Containment, Democracy, and the Prejudices of George Frost Kennan,” in Rethinking Grand Strategy, Elizabeth Borgwardt, Christopher McKnight Nichols, and Andrew Preston, eds. Oxford University Press, 2021.
“After Reform: The Odyssey of American Liberalism in Liberalism and Its Discontents,” in Alan Brinkley: A Life in History, David Greenberg, Moshik Temkin and Mason Williams, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), pp. 39-52.
“The Hundred Days Myth,” in Crucible: The President’s First Year, Michael Nelson et al., eds. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2018), pp. 269-275.
“The Ominous Clang: Fears of Propaganda from World War I to World War II,” in Media and Politics in Modern U.S. History, Bruce Schulman and Julian Zelizer, eds., University of Pennsylvania Press. Publication scheduled for Fall, 2016, approximately 20 pages.
“The Tale of the Classified Upside-Down Cake Recipe: Harry Truman, The Press, and Executive Confidentiality in the Cold War Years,” in Civil Liberties and the Legacy of Harry S. Truman, Richard S. Kirkendall, ed. (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2013), pp. 101-112.
“A New Way of Campaigning: Eisenhower, Stevenson, and the Anxieties of Television Politics,” in Liberty and Justice for All? Rethinking Politics in Cold War America, Kathleen Donohue, ed., (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), pp. 185-212.
“Do Historians Watch Enough TV? Broadcast News as a Primary Source,” in Doing Recent History, Claire Bond Potter and Renee Romano, eds., (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012), pp. 185-199.
“Nixon’s Image: A Brief History,” in A Companion to Richard M. Nixon, Melvin Small, ed. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
“The Debate about the Debates,” in From Votes to Victory: Winning and Governing the White House in the Twenty-First Century, Meena Bose, ed. Texas A&M University Press, 2011.“Creating Their Own Reality: The Bush Administration and Expertise in a Polarized Age,” in The Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment, Julian Zelizer, ed., Princeton University Press, 2010.“The Liberal Eclipse—and Reorientation,” in Living in the 1980s, Gil Troy and Vincent Cannato, eds. Oxford University, 2009.“Nixon the Statesman,” in Nixon in the World: American Foreign Policy, 1969-1977, Fredrik Logevall and Andrew Preston, eds., Oxford University Press, 2008.
“The Pledge of Allegiance: Why We’re Not One Nation ‘Under God,’” inThe Best of Slate: A 10th Anniversary Anthology, Jacob Weisberg, ed., Atlas Books, 2006.
“Nixon in American Memory,” in Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon, Harry P. Jeffrey, ed. CQ Press, 2004.
“Why We’re Not One Nation ‘Under God,’” in Dialogues: An Argument Rhetoric and Reader, 5th ed. Gary Goshgarian and Kathleen Krueger, eds. Longman Publishers, 2005.
“In the Shadow of the Sixties,” in Next: Young American Writers on the New Generation. Eric Liu. ed. W. W. Norton, 1994.

Reference Articles

“The New Republic,” Dictionary of American History, Supplement: America in the World, 1776 to the Present. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2015.
 Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law. Roger Newman, ed. Yale University Press, 2006. Entry on “Richard M. Nixon.”
Scribner’s Dictionary of American History , Stanley I. Kutler, ed. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003. Entries on “Impeachment Trial of Bill Clinton,” “9/11 Attack,” “Nixon, Resignation of,” and “Nixon Tapes.”
Scribner’s Encyclopedia of American Lives , Kenneth T. Jackson, ed. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998-2002. Entries on “Katharine Graham,” “John Ehrlichman” (Vol. 5); “Richard Milhous Nixon” (Vol. 4); “Patricia Nixon” (Vol. 3); “Richard L. Strout” (Vol. 2); “Samuel J. Ervin, Jr.” (Vol. 2); “Leon Jaworski” (Vol. 1); “Dwight Macdonald” (Vol. 1).

Online Magazines

“What Bob Dole Hath Wrought,” The Atlantic, November 11, 2020.
“The Presidency’s Relentless Race to the Bottom,” The Atlantic, September 16, 2019.
“Remembering Historian Alan Brinkley,” Time, June 18, 2019.
“How a Parasitic President Trump Feasted on the Ailing Media,” Daily Beast, January 20, 2018.
“Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever,” Foreign Policy, December 29, 2016.
“Lenny Skutnik’s Convention,” Dissent Online, July 28, 2016.
“Bill and Hillary: Biography as History,” Dissent Online, July 27, 2016.
“Excerpt: ‘Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency,’” National Memo, February 27, 2016.
“How a Little Girl Beat Barry Goldwater,” Daily Beast, February 19, 2016.
“How Teddy Roosevelt Invented Spin,” The Atlantic, January 24, 2016.
Review of The Heroic Heart: Greatness, Ancient and Modern, by Tod Lindberg, Real Clear Politics, October 12, 2015.
“The Legacy of Lyndon Johnson,” a debate with Michael Kazin, Part II, The New Republic, April 16, 2014.
“The Legacy of Lyndon Johnson,” a debate with Michael Kazin, Part I, The New Republic, April 15, 2014.
“The Man Who Pulled Back the Curtain,” Politico Magazine, March 12, 2014.
“The ASA’s Boycott of Israel is Not as Troubling As It Seems,” The New Republic, December 19, 2013.
“Arguing Iraq-Ten Years Later: A Symposium,” The New Republic, March 20, 2013.
“Why Liberals Should Oppose Chuck Hagel,” The Daily Beast, January 3, 2013.
“It’s a Man’s World.” Review of Jack Kennedy, by Christopher Matthews, in The Book: An Online Review at The New Republic, January 19, 2012.
“TNR’s Most Overlooked Stories: The Decline of Turkish Democracy,” The New Republic, December 29, 2011.
“Leave Herman Cain Alone Already,” The Atlantic, November 4, 2011.
“Why Liberals Need Occupy Wall Street, and Vice-Versa,” The New Republic, October 19, 2011.
“Hope, Change, Nietzsche.” Review of Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope and the American Political Tradition, by James T. Kloppenberg, The Book: An Online Review at The New Republic, May 26, 2011.
“The End: Bin Laden’s Death,” The New Republic, May 2, 2011.
“The Giffords Attack and a Gnawing Worry,” The New Republic, January 11, 2011.
“Calvin Coolidge: Right-Wing Rock Star?” Salon, November 28, 2010.
“What Went Wrong?” Dissent Online, November 6, 2010.
“The Do-Gooder.” Review of Woodrow Wilson, by John Milton Cooper, The Book: An Online Review at The New Republic, July 26, 2010.
“The Populism of the FDR Era,” Time Magazine, July 4, 2009.
“Is Clintonism Dead?” (with Julian Zelizer), The Daily Beast. June 12, 2009.
“Unreal,” Dissent Online, November 6, 2008.
“The Brain.” Discussion of The Angler, by Barton Gellman, Talking Points Memo, November 17-21, 2008.
“Landslide? Not Exactly.” The Daily Beast, November 5, 2008.
“Convention Diary,” Dissent Online, August 25-28, 2008.