Matthew Dallek, an assistant professor of political management at George Washington University, writes about contemporary politics, history, and public affairs for a wide variety of scholarly and popular publications. He is the author of Defenseless Under the Night: The Roosevelt Years and the Origins of Homeland Security (2016), The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics (2000), and Inside Campaigns: Elections through the Eyes of Political Professionals (co-authored, 2016).
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
“London Burning: The Blitz of England and the Origins of 'Home Defense' in Twentieth-Century America,” Journal of Policy History, Volume 27, No. 2, 2015.
“Was it a Wave? What does it Mean?,” co-authored with Ken Goldstein, The Forum, Volume 12, Issue 4, December 2014.
“Even the Geeks are Polarized: The Dispute over the ‘Real Driver’ in American Elections,” co-authored with Ken Goldstein and Joel Rivlin, The Forum, Volume 12, Issue 2, July 2014.
Reviews and Essays in Scholarly Journals (and other academic publications)
“A Historian in a Professional School of Politics,” Perspectives (the Magazine of the American Historical Association), 2015.
Review of David Nasaw’s The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy, Journal of American History, December 2013.
Participant in H-Diplo Online Forum examining the history of President George H.W. Bush’s Foreign Policy, 2010.
Contributor, The American Odyssey: A History of the United States, Ed. By Morton Keller, Mary Beth Klee, Joshua Zeitz, and John Holdren, 2009.
Review of Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier’s America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, The Misunderstood Years between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Start of the War on Terror, H-Diplo Online, 2008.
Review of Myra MacPherson’s All Governments Lie! The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone, in JHistory, the online academic journal, 2007.
American National Biography, Entry on Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, Oxford University Press.
“Up From Liberalism: Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan, and the 1966 Gubernatorial Election,” in Responsible Liberalism: Edmund G. "Pat" Brown and Reform Government in California 1958–1967, ed., Martin Schiesl. Published by Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs, Los Angeles, Calif.
"The Wallace Legacy," a review of Dan T. Carter’s From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994, in Reviews in American History, Volume 26, Number 2, June 1998.
Selected Journalism
"Donald Trump is the Ultimate Republican Repudiation of Jack Kemp's Legacy," The Washington Post, May 12, 2016
"In Defense of the Unfair, Messy Presidential Nominating Process," The Washington Post, April 15, 2016
"Populists-vs-elites: America's other favorite pastime," Yahoo News, April 20, 2016
"When the U.S. Freaks Out About Foreign Enemies, Things Get Weird," The Washington Post, Dec. 10, 2015
“Why the Victims of Personal Tragedies Often Make Better Politicians,” The Washington Post, October 23, 2015
“Trumpalooza: We’ve Seen This Show Before,” Yahoo News, Aug. 28, 2015
“After Baltimore, What Hope for Change,” Yahoo News, April 30, 2015
"In Defense of Political Dynasties," The Washington Post, March 6, 2015
“The Speech that Launched the Great Society,” TheConversationUS.com, January 6, 2015
“How Pearl Harbor Closed the White House Doors,” The Washington Post Sunday Outlook, October 3, 2014
"Review of Landslide: LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America by Jonathan Darman," The Washington Post Book World, September 26, 2014
“Rough Times for Obama? Sure. But Nixonian? Please.” The Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section, May 17, 2013
“Franklin Roosevelt—Four-Term President—and the Election of 1944,” History Now (Fall 2012), The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
“Review of ‘The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” by Jonathan Alter, The Washington Post Book World, May 16, 2010
“History Warns Obama on Primaries,” Politico, May 11, 2010
“Believe It or Not, Democrats are the Party of Fiscal Responsibility,” New York Daily News, February 24, 2010
“The Rift that Could Kill Health Care,” The Daily Beast, January 29, 2010
“Review of ‘The Dead Hand,’ by David E. Hoffman,” The Washington Post Book World, January 17, 2010
“A Long Tradition,” Response to “What Is Socialism?,” Room for Debate, A New York Times Blog, September 15, 2009
“You’re Going to Live a Long Life,” The American Scholar, June 15, 2009
“Not Ready for Mt. Rushmore,” The American Scholar, June 1, 2009
“On Voting Rights, the Court Finds Consensus,” co-authored with Mary Ellen Curtin, The Atlantic (June 2009)
“Starting out Strong,” The Washington Post Book World, February 15, 2009
“Theodore C. Sorensen: Words to Inspire,” Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities (2009)
“Revisionists’ Blind View of New Deal,” Politico, February 13, 2009
“On Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday, Remember the Man in Full,” New York Daily News, February 11, 2009
“Steve Jobs and Me: A Layman’s Guide to Islet-Cell Tumors in the Pancreas,” Slate.com, 2009
“The Comparisons Between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln,” US News, Nov. 20, 2008
“60s Radical? Today’s Voters Don’t Care,” Politico, October 28, 2008
“I Had the Same Disease. But I was Lucky,” The Washington Post’s Outlook Section, August 3, 2008 (The piece was reprinted in more than ten newspapers nationwide including The Houston Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune and San Jose Mercury News.)
“Day of the Jackal,” The Wilson Quarterly, 2008
“Unity Still out of Reach,” Politico, June 17, 2008
“Fear Rears Its Head in Race for Nomination,” Politico, April 29 2008
“Civic Security,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas (Winter 2008, No. 7)
“An issue in remission,” The Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2007
“Trial by Television,” Review of The Conviction of Richard Nixon by James Reston Jr., The Washington Post Book World, July 15, 2007
“If the Democratic Party has lost its way, will democracy itself be sure to follow?” The Washington Post, Semptember 10, 2006
“Can Bush Deliver for Conservatives?” Salon.com, November 30, 2004
“GOP Success: It’s the Principles, Stupid,” The Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2004
“Primaries Make Voters Secondary,” The Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2004
“Golden Boy,” Review of Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power by Lou Cannon, The Washington Post Book World, September 21, 2003
"Liberalism Overthrown," in American Heritage (October 1996) Vol. 47, Issue 6
“The Conservative 1960s,” The Atlantic (December 1995)
