Education
- Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh
- M.A., The American University
- B.A., University of Pittsburgh
Affiliations
- Visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
- The Center for Strategic and International Studies
- The Heritage Foundation
- The Allegheny Institute for Public Policy
- Editorial board of Presidential Studies Quarterly, the flagship academic publication on the presidency
- Several boards, including the Philadelphia Society
Areas of Expertise
- Internationally recognized authority on several subjects, particularly Ronald Reagan, the Cold War and communism
- Nationally known for work on the American presidency
- One of a select group of 58 presidential scholars to participate in C-SPAN’s prestigious, highly regarded ranking of American presidents in 2009, a follow up to C-SPAN’s popular 2000 survey. The four-person advisory team to the survey was comprised of Douglas Brinkley, Richard Norton Smith, Edna Medford and Harvey Mansfield.
Courses Taught
- Middle East Politics
- Comparative Politics
- Major European Governments
- Intro to Politics
- Public Administration
- Issues in Global Politics
- Modern Civilization in International Perspective, and (future) Marxism
Selected Research & Publications
- Released two books in 2015. The first is a co-edited volume (with Jeffrey Chidester, University of Virginia), titled Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed. Published by Harvard University Press, it is being billed as a seminal scholarly work on President Ronald Reagan. Also published Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, a shocking expose of how the far left, from Karl Marx to Herbert Marcuse, have sought to take down natural-traditional-Biblical marriage and family, culminating in “gay marriage,” which provides the long-sought vehicle for leftists to finally succeed in redefining marriage and family — and to attack religion. These books follow his 2014 work, 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative, one of his many books on President Ronald Reagan.
- Authored over a dozen books, including several bestsellers. More recently, the 2012 profile of Frank Marshall Davis, mentor to Barack Obama, titled, The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, the Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor (Simon & Schuster, Threshold/Mercury Ink), debuted at #9 on the New York Times bestseller list and hit #1 in non-fiction at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com. Based on declassified FBI files and Soviet and Communist Party USA archives, the book garnered a significant amount of public attention.
- In 2010, published Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century (ISI Books). Based on extensive Soviet archival research, particularly the Comintern Archives on Communist Party USA, the book examines the exploitation of American liberals by communists beginning in the early 20th century.
- Prior to Dupes, published another major Cold War work, focused on Ronald Reagan’s role in undermining the Soviet Union, titled, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan & the Fall of Communism. The Crusader includes never-before-published documents from KGB archives, Soviet media archives, and once-secret but now declassified NSC, White House, and Reagan administration documents. Originally released in hardcover in October 2006 (HarperCollins), the paperback rights were purchased by HarperPerennial for release in September 2007. The book was translated for release in Poland in October 2007. The book was also translated into Korean and the Estonian market.
- Also in 2007, released God and Hillary Clinton (HarperCollins), the first and only examination of the faith and spiritual life of the former first lady. In November 2007, published (with co-author Patricia Clark Doerner) The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (Ignatius Press), a long-awaited biography of Ronald Reagan’s close friend and most influential foreign-policy adviser. The Judge is the only book to be endorsed by two living ex-presidents from differing political parties: President Jimmy Carter and President George H.W. Bush.
- Best-known is God and Ronald Reagan (ReganBooks, HarperCollins, 2004), which made bestseller lists for The New York Times (extended list), Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Christian Retailing, among others; the book reached #2 on Amazon’s non-fiction list. Authored God and George W. Bush (ReganBooks, HarperCollins, 2004), which reached #5 on Amazon’s non-fiction list and made The New York Times’ extended bestseller list. Co-edited with Peter Schweizer Assessing the Reagan Presidency (Rowman-Littlefield, 2005). Also wrote chapters or essays in books published by Oxford University Press, Columbia University Press, Palgrave-Macmillan, Lexington and many others.
- Film rights for the two books on Ronald Reagan, The Crusader and God and Ronald Reagan, were purchased by MJM Group. The books are the basis for a major Hollywood “bio-pic” on the life and presidency of Ronald Reagan, titled, Reagan: The Movie. The film, budgeted at $30 million, will be co-produced by Mark Joseph, Ralph Winter, and John Sullivan, with script by Howard Klausner. Filming is planned for 2016.
Professional Experience
- Frequent contributor to MSNBC, C-SPAN, NPR, the BBC, PCN-TV, EWTN and Fox News Channel.
- Regular columnist for Townhall and the American Spectator
- Appeared on many TV shows, including “The O’Reilly Factor,” “Hannity,” “Fox & Friends,” the “700 Club,” Lou Dobbs, “Hannity & Colmes,” “Tony Snow Live,” and “Scarborough Country.”
- Hundreds of radio-talk shows, including the shows of Sean Hannity, Bill Bennett, Mark Levin, Diane Rehm (NPR), Michael Reagan, Warren Olney (NPR), Glenn Beck, Janet Parshall’s America, Truths that Transform with D. James Kennedy, Dennis Praeger, Michael Medved, G. Gordon Liddy, Linda Chavez, Kresta in the Afternoon, Jim Quinn, Stand to Reason with Greg Koukl, and Laura Ingraham. Hosts like Rush Limbaugh have discussed his work on air. He does a regular commentary for three nationally syndicated radio programs: American Radio Journal, Moody Broadcasting, and Ave Maria Radio Network/CatholicExchange.com.
- Frequent public speaker, including the Reagan Library, the National Press Club, the U.S. Capitol Building, the National Presbyterian Church, the Commonwealth (Pennsylvania) Prayer Breakfast, the Heritage Foundation, the Gerald R. Ford Library, the Witherspoon Fellowship Program, American Enterprise Institute, among many others. He has also spoken at many colleges, including the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, the College of William & Mary, Eureka College, the Ave Maria College School of Law (Ann Arbor, MI), Calvin College, Franciscan University, Regent University, Claremont McKenna College, Saint Vincent College, Patrick Henry College, the University of Pittsburgh, Drexel University, DePaul University, Wabash College, Washington & Jefferson College, and more.
Interests
- Fanatic for the Pittsburgh Steelers
- Baseball
- Hunting, fishing, and archery hunting with sons
- Along with wife Susan, has eight children, two of which are adopted
You might be surprised to know...
I was a terrible student in high school who barely graduated and probably should not have graduated. I was a bad kid as well as a bad student. I turned my life around quite dramatically only once I became intensely interested in medicine in college — after having been barely accepted to a community college — and then (more importantly) once I became a Christian. My major as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh was biochemistry/biophysics, and I worked full-time on Dr. Thomas Starzl’s organ-transplant team, the surgeon/group that pioneered organ transplantation. I almost went to medical school. Ultimately, my passion for understanding the Cold War and the end of the Cold War — as well as the Reagan presidency and politics generally — won out and compelled me to a very different career path.