Dr. Kyle Longley
Henry Salvatori Professor of American Values and Traditions
- Education:
- Angelo State University, Bachelor of Arts
Texas Tech University, Master of Arts
University of Kentucky (Lexington), Ph.D.
Biography
Kyle Longley is the director of the War, Diplomacy, and Society and a Professor of History. Most recently, he was named the Henry Salvatori Professor of American Values and Traditions. Longley joined the Chapman faculty in July 2020 after being at Arizona State University as the Snell Family Distinguished Professor since 1995.
Longley has published nine books including: The Sparrow and the Hawk: Costa Rica and the United States During the Rise of José Figueres (1997), In the Eagle's Shadow: The United States and Latin America (2003, 2009 2nd edition), Senator Albert Gore Sr.: Tennessee Maverick (2004), Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America's Fortieth President (editor and contributor) [2006], Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam (2008, 2nd edition, 2020), The Morenci Marines: A Tale of Small Town America and the Vietnam War (2013), Reagan and the World: Leadership and National Security, 1981-1989 (co-editor with Bradley Coleman and contributor) [2017]), LBJ's 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Uphaveal (2018), and the co-authored, In Harm's Way: A History of the American Military Experience (2019). He also was an associate editor for Encyclopedia of United States-Latin American Relations (2012) with Thomas Leonard and now is a lead editor in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin America (2018-present). Currently, he is writing The Forever Soldiers: Americans at War in Afghanistan and Iraq (for Cambridge University Press) and The Unlucky Ones: Lima Company and the Marines in Iraq. His books have won prizes including the Southeastern Council on Latin American Relations A.B. Thomas Award, the Best Book on Arizona History from the Arizona/New Mexico Book Co-op Committee, and the Southwest Book Award from the Arizona Historical Society.
Longley has also published numerous articles and essays in journals including Diplomatic History, Pacific Historical Review, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Review of Faith and International Affairs, AHA Perspectives, and The Americas. His opinion pieces have appeared in Newsweek, CNN, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Arizona Republic, San Antonio Express News, and the Austin American Statesman. He has also consulted with other media outlets including ABC News, NPR, C-SPAN, Slate, Voice of America, Time, Jornal do Brazil, JiJi Press, and the Christian Science Monitor.
At Arizona State, Professor Longley offered a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses. His most popular at the undergraduate level, both in the traditional form and online, include: Modern U.S. Foreign Relations, U.S.-Latin American Relations, the American Experience in Vietnam, Wars of the Modern Middle East, American Military History, and America's Guerrilla Wars. At the graduate level, he has offered courses in American history including The United States and the World, Modern American Military History, and Modern U.S. History since 1898. He has served on more than forty Ph.D. and M.A. committees, directing more than a dozen, as well as working as a mentor to graduate students about pedagogy.
His work at the undergraduate and graduate levels has received recognition. The Associated Students of ASU named me the Centennial Professor as the outstanding teacher at ASU. It was a particularly gratifying award as a panel of students and faculty made the selection from a pool of more than 2,000 faculty members. He also has received others, including the Zebulon Pearce Award for Outstanding Teacher in the Humanities and ASU Habitat for Humanity “Making the World a Cooler Place to Live” Teaching Award.
Finally, he served in many administrative positions at Arizona State University including director of graduate studies for the History Department (twice), faculty head, and associate director of School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. At the university level, he has contributed including service on the Provost Committee on Retention and Graduation and the Graduate College Fellowships and Diversity Committee. Outside the university, he has been active in several organizations including the American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians (distinguished lecturer board), the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (currently a board member), and the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (president, 2011-2012).
Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications
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The Forever Soldiers: Americans at War in Afghanistan and Iraq in press with the University of North Carolina Press (publication forthcoming in Winter 2024/2025).
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Days in the Life: A Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. Under contract for Cambridge University Press for December 2024. 60 percent of book completed.
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"What the NFL’s Heroic Caricature of Pat Tillman Tells Us about Patriotism," Washington Post, February 2023.
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The Forever Soldiers: Americans at War in Afghanistan and Iraq. University of North Carolina Press. In press in summer 2023.
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Days in the Life: A Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson. Under contract for Cambridge University Press for December 2024.
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The 1950s Congressman Whose Career Explains the Texas GOP’s Extremism," Washington Post, 7 July 2022.
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"Learning from Past Blunders Is Crucial for a New Army Program," Washington Post, 11 August 2022.
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The History Behind Why a BYU Volleyball Game Went Viral," Washington Post, 16 September 2022.
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Longley, Kyle. “The Olympics Have Long Been an Arena for the Fight Between Racism and Equality,” Washington Post, 23 July 2021.
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Longley, Kyle. “The U.S. War on Drugs Helped Unleash the Violence in Colombia Today,” Washington Post, 8 June 2021.
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Longley, Kyle. “Our Politics Is No Uglier or Dysfunctional Than in the Past,” Washington Post, 14 May 2021.
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Longley, Kyle. “Lyndon Johnson’s Vision for Voting Rights Offers a Vision for Protecting Them,” Washington Post, 8 April 2021.
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"The last 20 years have remade the nature of military service. Here’s how." Washington Post, 11 November 2021.
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Longley, Kyle. Costa Rica and the Environment: The ‘Switzerland of the Americas’?” Discurso (Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies) 10 December 2020,
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Longley, Kyle. “Harassing the Biden Bus Could Backfire on the Republicans: In a Close Election, the Backlash Against Boorish Behavior Can Make an Impact,” Washington Post, 2 November 2020.
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Longley, Kyle. “What Democrats Need to Know to Win Latinos: To Avoid a Disappointing 2020 Turnout, the Party Needs to Understand the Nuances of the Latino Electorate,” New York Times, 20 November 2019 [with Arnold Garcia].
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Longley, Kyle. In Harm’s Way: A History of the U.S. Military (with Gene Smith and David Coffey). New York: Oxford University Press, February 2019.
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Kyle Longley Review of John Lindsay-Poland, Plan Colombia: U.S. Ally Atrocities and Community Activism for the American Historical Review. Fall 2019.
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Longley, Kyle. “What Happens When You Kill the Messenger in Nicaragua,” Statfor Worldview, 23 October 2019.
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Longley, Kyle. “Historians on Trump: We’ve Never Seen Anything Like This,” CNN, 4 October 2019 [with Lisa Cobbs, Ken Osgood, Jeremi Suri].
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Longley, Kyle. “Why Donald Trump Is Just Following in Ronald Reagan’s Footsteps on Race,” Washington Post, 4 August 2019.
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Longley, Kyle. “Anti-Americanism, Venezuelan Style,” Statfor Worldview, 16 July 2019.
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Longley, Kyle. “Why It’s Wrong to Attack Joe Biden on Civil Rights, Washington Post, 1 July 2019.
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Longley, Kyle. LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval. New York: Cambridge University Press, February 2018.
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Kyle Longley Review of “The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: A Review,” Diplomatic History (June 2018): 396-400.
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Kyle Longley Review of Greg Daddis, Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam for Diplomatic History, March 2018.
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Kyle Longley Review of Jeffrey A. Engel, When the World Seemed New: George H. W. Bush and the End of the Cold War for H-DIPLO, March 2018.
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Kyle Longley Review of Russell Crandall, The Salvador Option: The United States and El Salvador for H-DIPLO, January 2018.
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Longley, Kyle. “President Johnson’s Private vs. Public Reaction to Martin Luther King’s Assassination,” Newsweek, 3 April 2018.
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Longley, Kyle. “Lyndon Johnson’s Trip Around the World,” New York Times, 2 January 2018.