Walter A. McDougall

Walter A. McDougall

Professor of History, Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations

European and U.S. diplomatic, Western civilization, technology and international relations

215 898.2185 or 0452

St. Leonard's Court, Room 300.1

Walter A. McDougall is Professor of History and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations. A graduate of Amherst College and a Vietnam veteran, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1974 and taught at U.C. Berkeley for 13 years before coming to Penn to direct its International Relations Program which now has 180 majors.

McDougall teaches U.S., European, and Asia/Pacific diplomatic history and is the author of many books, most recently The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How American Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest (2016), Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829–1877 (2008), and Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585–1828 (2004). His other books include Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter With the World Since 1776 (1997), Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific from Magellan to MacArthur (1993), and ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (1985) for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. McDougall is also Director of Research and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

Note: Prof. McDougall is no longer accepting new Ph.D. advisees.

Office Hours
Tues, 2:00–4:00 in History (300.1 St. Leonard's Court) ; Wed, 10:00–12:00 in International Relations (637 Williams)
Education

Ph.D. University of Chicago

M.A. University of Chicago

B.A. Amherst College

Courses Taught

HIST 002 Europe in a Wider World

HIST 331 U.S. Diplomatic History since 1776

HIST 420 European International Relations

HIST 421 History of International Politics

HIST 204 Seminars: World War II, The Vietnam War, American Civil Religion, Decline of Great Powers

Affiliations

Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia

CV (file)