Robert K. Brigham is the Shirley Ecker Boskey Professor of History and International Relations at Vassar College. He is a historian of US foreign policy, particularly of the Vietnam War.

Robert K. Brigham
Born (1960-04-20) April 20, 1960 (age 64)
OccupationHistorian

Education

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Brigham earned his undergraduate degree from The College at Brockport, State University of New York and an MA from University of Rhode Island in 1982 prior to receiving his PhD from University of Kentucky in 1994.[1][2] At Kentucky, Brigham worked with Professor George C. Herring.

Career

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Brigham joined Vassar in 1994. He has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Social Sciences Committee in Hanoi. In addition, he has been Mellon Senior Visiting Scholar at Clare College, Cambridge, and visiting professor of international relations at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.[3]

In 1998, he was an Albert Shaw Endowed Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University alongside Charles E. Neu, Brian Balogh, Robert McNamara, and George C. Herring.[4][5] From 2007 to 2008, he held the Mary Ball Washington Professorship of American History (Fulbright) at University College Dublin.[6][3]

In addition to his academic writing, Brigham has published hundreds of reviews and op-ed pieces in newspapers, such as the Washington Post,[7] Wall Street Journal, and the Independent.[8] He has also appeared on NPR, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, the BBC, CBS Radio, and CNN.[9] In 2017, Brigham contributed op-ed pieces to The New York Times series, Vietnam '67.[10][11]

Awards

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  • Outstanding Faculty Member, Southern Vermont College (1987)
  • Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Teaching, University of Kentucky (1993)
  • Outstanding Faculty Member, Semester at Sea, University of Virginia (2014)
  • Outstanding Faculty Award, Alumnae/I Association of Vassar College (2019)[12]
  • Peter L. Hahn Distinguished Service Award, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (2023)[13]

Books

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  • Reckless: Henry Kissinger and the Tragedy of Vietnam (PublicAffairs, 2018) ISBN 978-1-61039-702-5.
  • American Foreign Relations: A History, Volumes I & II, Eighth edition (Cengage, 2015) ISBN 978-1-285-73627-3. Co-authored with Thomas G. Paterson, J. Garry Clifford, Michael E. Donoghue, Kenneth J. Hagan, Deborah Kisatsky, Shane J. Maddock.
  • The United States and Iraq Since 1990: a Brief History with Documents (Wiley, 2013) ISBN 978-1-118-29455-0.
  • Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power (PublicAffairs, 2008) ISBN 978-0-7867-3173-2.
  • Is Iraq Another Vietnam? (PublicAffairs, 2006) ISBN 978-1-58648-413-2.[14]
  • ARVN: life and death in the South Vietnamese Army (University Press of Kansas, 2006) ISBN 0-7006-1433-8.
  • Guerrilla Diplomacy: The NLF's Foreign Relations and the Viet Nam War (Cornell University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-8014-3317-7.
  • Argument without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (PublicAffairs, 1999) ISBN 1-891620-22-3. Co-authored with Robert McNamara, James Blight, Thomas J. Biersteker, and Colonel Herbert Schandler.

References

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  1. ^ "Robert K. Brigham | Vassar College". Vassar College. Archived from the original on July 15, 2024. Retrieved July 15, 2024.
  2. ^ Paterson, Thomas G. (2015). American foreign relations : a history. J. Garry Clifford, Robert K. Brigham, Michael E. Donoghue, Kenneth J. Hagan, Deborah Kisatsky, Shane J. Maddock (Eighth ed.). Stamford, CT. pp. v. ISBN 978-1-285-73627-3. OCLC 876081143.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. ^ a b Anderson, David L. (2011). The Columbia History of the Vietnam War. New York City: Columbia University Press. p. 432. ISBN 978-0-231-13480-4. JSTOR 10.7312/ande13480. LCCN 2010018853. OCLC 612962918.
  4. ^ Neu, Charles (2000). After Vietnam: Legacies of a Lost War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. doi:10.56021/9780801863271. ISBN 978-0-8018-6332-5. LCCN 99053818. OCLC 1296740121.
  5. ^ "The Johns Hopkins Gazette: April 27, 1998". The Johns Hopkins Gazette Online. Archived from the original on September 24, 2023. Retrieved September 24, 2023.
  6. ^ "UCD School of History | Mary Ball Washington Chair". www.ucd.ie. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  7. ^ Brigham, Reviewed Robert K. (2003-03-02). "Siege Mentality". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  8. ^ "Robert Brigham: Different war, same mistakes". The Independent. 2007-01-14. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  9. ^ "Historian to speak at Coe Feb. 28 on United States, Vietnam relationship". thegazette.com. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  10. ^ Brigham, Robert K. (2017-08-29). "Opinion | Lyndon Johnson vs. the Hawks". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  11. ^ Brigham, Robert K. (2017-06-17). "Opinion | A Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
  12. ^ "AAVC Bestows 2019 Spirit of Vassar and Outstanding Faculty/Staff Awards". Vassar College. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
  13. ^ "The Peter L. Hahn Distinguished Service Award". members.shafr.org. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
  14. ^ Gilbert, Marc Jason (2009). "Review of Is Iraq Another Vietnam?; Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam; or, How Not to Learn from the Past". Journal of Vietnamese Studies. 4 (1): 240–247. doi:10.1525/vs.2009.4.1.240. ISSN 1559-372X. JSTOR 10.1525/vs.2009.4.1.240.