Donald Critchlow

Donald T. Critchlow, Katzin Family Professor at Arizona State University, serves as co-director of the Program in Political History and Leadership. The Program's mission is to develop students into actual leaders by providing an understanding of the complexities of real decision making beyond simple abstractions of the qualities that make a good leader. He is editor of the Journal of Policy History, a quarterly scholarly journal published by Cambridge University Press.

Prof. Critchlow's most recent books include Republican Character: From Nixon to Reagan (Penn University Press), American Political History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2015), and When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Moguls, Film Stars, and Big Business Remade American Politics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Other publications include The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Made Political History (Harvard University Press, 2007; rev. and updated edition University Press of Kansas. 2011); Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 2005); Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government (Oxford University Press, 1999, pap. 2001); Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporations (Indiana University Press, 1997); and the Brookings Institution: Expertise and the Public Interest in a Democratic Society (Northern Illinois University Press, 1989). He is general editor for the new Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political and Legal History.

Critchlow teaches courses on American conservatism, political thought, political conspiracy, and contemporary American history.

After receiving his doctoral degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley, Critchlow became a professor at the University of Notre Dame and later chair of the History Department at Saint Louis University. He has been a visiting professor at Hong Kong University and Warsaw University. He has lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, and China. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Policy History, a quarterly published by Cambridge University Press.

His books are regularly reviewed in the New York Times Book Review, New Republic, National Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, Washington Post Book Review, and other magazines and newspapers. He has appeared on C-Span Books, NPR's Talk of the Nation, BBC World News, and numerous talk-radio programs.