Iwan Morgan
Professor of United States Studies Institute for the Study of the Americas School of Advanced Study University of London
E-mail: iwan.morgan@sas.ac.uk
Telephone: 020 7862 8647
Biography
Iwan Morgan is Professor of US Studies and Head of US Programmes at the Institute for the Study of the Americas [ISA]. He was previously Professor of Modern American History and Head of Department of Politics and Modern History at London Guildhall University and Professor of American Governance at London Metropolitan University. He has also taught at Indiana University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne as a Fulbright Educational Exchange Lecturer.
He holds a BA in History from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and a PhD in International History from the London School of Economics. He has published widely in various fields of modern US political history and in political economy. Much of his work has a presidential focus. He is director of ISA’s newly established United States Presidential Centre. He is also chair of the executive committee of the Historians of the Twentieth Century United States. He is a member of the executive committee of the British Association of American Studies.
Most recently, Professor Morgan's work The Age of Deficits won the American Politics Group's 2010 Richard Neustadt Book Prize.
Areas of specialisation and research degree supervision
Among Iwan Morgan’s teaching specialisms are: The Rise of the Sunbelt since 1945; US Political Economy; and the US Presidency. He welcomes applications from or discussion with anyone wishing to undertake a research degree in modern US political history (from the New Deal onwards); US political economy – historical or contemporary; or the US presidency – past or present.
Currently he supervises students working on the following topics (in chronological order):
- the historical reputation of Ulysses S. Grant
- the Eisenhower administration’s management of public opinion regarding its foreign policy towards China
- deregulation of the Food and Drug Administration in the Reagan era
- democratization and post-Cold War US foreign policy
- the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Iraq War
Publications
Single-authored books
The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, by Iwan Morgan
The debate over the federal budget—and the deficit spending it tends to produce—has assumed a renewed urgency for reasons that are painfully clear to all of us. Over the past thirty-two years—from the presidency of Jimmy Carter through that of George W. Bush—the U.S. government has in fact balanced its budget in only four of them, while the fiscal challenges confronting President Obama make a balanced budget anytime soon a remote possibility. This book provides a much-needed historical perspective on this perennially troubling issue. Published November 2009, Kansas University Press. More details.
The Age of Deficits won the American Politics Group's Richard Neustadt Book Prize in September 2010. Click here for full details.
The following op eds by Iwan Morgan relating to The Age of Deficits appeared in the History News Network in November/December 2009:
- Obama and the Democrats Need to Confront the Deficit Monster
- Seeing Red: The Budget Deficit - Past, Present and Future
- Rosy Scenarios and Red Realities: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the Deficit
Nixon (London and New York: Arnold/Oxford University Press, 2002)
Deficit Government: Taxing and Spending in Modern America (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1995)
Beyond the Liberal Consensus: A Political History of the United States since 1965 (London and New York: Hurst/St Martin’s Press, 1994)
Eisenhower versus ‘The Spenders’: The Eisenhower Administration, the Democrats and the Budget, 1953-1960(London and New York: Pinter/St Martin’s Press, 1990)
Edited Books
The President in the Movies: American History and Politics on Screen, edited by Iwan W. Morgan
Published by Palgrave: New York, 2011
Assessing George W. Bush’s Legacy: The Right Man?, edited by Iwan Morgan and Philip Davies
Published by Palgrave: New York, 2010
Quebec and the Heritage of Franco-America, edited by Iwan Morgan and Philip Davies
Published by London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2010. More details
The Federal Nation: Perspectives on American Federalism, by Iwan W. Morgan and Philip J. Davies
This volume gathers contributors from both the US and UK to provide a comparative examination of federalism in the Bush era, a period of huge change in national politics, but also one of significant shifts in US federalism in relation to social and socioeconomic issues. Published February 2009, Palgrave Macmillan. More details.
The Political Economy of the Public Budget in the Americas, edited by Diego Sánchez-Ancochea and Iwan Morgan
This volume draws together the work of political economy specialists from Latin America, the United States and Europe. Its innovative approach provides a multi-disciplinary comparison of fiscal and tax policies in Latin America and the United States. Published December 2008, Institute for the Study of the Americas. More details.
Right On? Political Change and Continuity in George W. Bush’s America, edited by Iwan Morgan and Philip Davies
George W. Bush is widely regarded as a president of transformative significance. This volume of essays analyses the ambitious but controversial agenda that he has pursued at home and abroad. The contributors assess Bush's presidency in terms of its historical context, first-term record and second-term prospects. Published 2006, Institute for the Study of the Americas. More details.
America's Americans: Population Issues in U.S. Society and Politics
edited by Philip Davies and Iwan Morgan
This book examines the social, cultural, economic and political effects of modern demographic change in the United States. Published 2007, Institute for the Study of the Americas. More details.
Recent Journal Articles
‘The Indebted Empire: America’s Current-Account Deficit Problem,’ International Politics, 45 (Jan., 2008), 92-112
‘Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and the New Democratic Economics,’ Historical Journal, 47 (Dec., 2004), 1015-1039
‘Unconventional Politics: The Campaign for a Balanced-Budget Constitutional Convention in the 1970s,’ British Journal of American Studies (Dec., 1998), 421-46
Recent contributions to edited books
"The American Economy and America's Global Power" in Nicholas Kitchen, ed., The United States After Unipolarity (LSE Ideas: London, 2011)
“The President Impeached: Tennessee Johnson and Nixon” in Iwan Morgan, ed., The President in the Movies: American History and Politics on Screen
“Bush’s Political Economy: Deficits, Debt, and depression” in Iwan Morgan and Philip Davies, eds., Assessing George W. Bush’s Legacy: The Right Man? (Palgrave: New York, 2010)
“Down and Out in Washington and London (But not in Paris and Berlin): The Decline of the Cold war Consensus in Transatlantic Perspective” in Roberta Haar and Neil Wynn, eds., Transatlantic Conflict and Consensus: Culture, History & Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge Academic, 2009)
‘Budgetary Politics in the Bush Administration’ in Mark Rozell and Gleaves Whitney, eds., Reflections on the George W. Bush Presidency (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009)
‘America’s Current-Account Deficit,’ in Iwan Morgan and Diego Sanchez, eds., The Political Economy of Public Budgets in the Americas (London: Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2008)
‘Reaganomics and Its Legacy,’ in Gareth Davies and Cheryl Hudson, eds., The Reagan Years: The United States in the 1980s (New York: Palgrave, 2008 forthcoming)
‘Anti-Americanism and the Washington Consensus’ in Brendon O’Connor, ed., Sources of Anti-Americanism, Volume I (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2007)
‘The Bush Administration and the Budget Deficit” in Iwan Morgan and Philip Davis, eds., Right On? Political Change and Continuity in George Bush’s America (London: Institute for the Study of the Americas Press, 2006)
Contributions to Works of Reference
The Encyclopaedia of the Great Depression (New York: MacMillan, 2004)
The Civil Rights Encyclopaedia (New York: MacMillan, 1999)
Dictionary of American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Recent Conference Papers
“Tangled up in Red: Obama and the Deficit Problem,” AHRC Obama Network Research Symposium – American Power Today, May 2011
“After the White House: Being Ex-President,” America Politics Group Conference, Oxford, January, 2011
“The Federal Budget: A Metaphor for Broken Government?” in Is American Government Broken? Political Studies/American Politics Group symposium, British Library, December, 2010
“The US Post-Presidency” in Former Leaders Conference, University of Leiden, The Hague, September, 2010
“The Volcker Regime at the Fed,” Policy History Association Conference, Columbus, Ohio, June, 2010
“Seeing Red: Obama’s Deficit Dilemma,” in Deficits, Debt, and Depression: The Political Economy of Twenty-first Century America symposium, University of Copenhagen
“Eisenhower as Budget Leader: Neustadian Amateur or Machiavellian Professional,” American Politics Group Conference, Oxford, January 2010
“Unbalanced Budgets in the Age of Keynes: From the New Deal to the New Economics,” Historians of the Twentieth Century United States Conference, Cambridge, June, 2009
“The Economic Presidency,” American Politics Group Conference, Oxford, January, 2009
‘Who’s Afraid of the L-Word? Progressivism in the New Democrat Era,” British Association of American Studies conference, March 2008
‘Confronting the Deficit: Jimmy Carter and the Balanced Budget,’ Cambridge University-Boston University international conference America in the 1970s, March 2007
‘When was “Tax-and-Spend Liberalism”? An Inquiry into the Reality of Conservative Demonology,’ American Politics Group conference, January, 2007
‘America’s Current-Account Deficit Problem,’ The Political Economy of Public Budgets in the Americas conference, Institute for the Study of the Americas-Chatham House, October, 2006
‘Down and Out in Washington and London, but not in Paris and Berlin: The Decline of the Postwar Consensus in Transatlantic Perspective,’ Plenary Address to the 4th Biennial Conference on Transatlantic Studies, Maastricht, October, 2006
‘Coexisting with the Other Red Peril: Ronald Reagan and the Budget Deficit,’ Cambridge University US History Mellon Seminar Program, February, 2006
‘Presidents and the Deficit: A Comparison of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush,’ American Politics Group Conference, January, 2006
‘The Politics of the Budget Deficit in the Reagan Era,’ The Reagan Era: America in the 1980s international conference, Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University, November 2005
‘Arms and the Man: Presidents and the Defense Budget,’ European Consortium for Political Research Conference, Budapest, September 2005
‘Bill Clinton and the Balanced Budget,’ British Association of American Studies Conference, Cambridge, April, 2005
‘Indebted Empire: America’s Current-Account Deficit,’ US Foreign Policy Conference, University of Leicester, March, 2005
‘Bush’s Budget Policy,’ Institute for the Study of the Americas–British Library Eccles Centre for American Studies Symposium, The George W. Bush Administration’s Second-Term Agenda, March 2005
Media work
I am happy to consider media requests for commentary on US issues relating to: economic and budgetary issues; presidential leadership; party politics; elections; and political history. I have appeared regularly on CNN and have also commented for, among other outlets, BBC 4, ITV 2, Channel 5, BBC World Service Radio, and BBC Radio 5.
Recent media work:
- BBC Radio 5 live News: Obama’s Hundred Days (29 April 2009)
- Sianel 4 Cymru Newyddion: Obama’s Hundred Days (29 April 2009)
- Sky New: Obama’s Hundred Days (29 April 2009)
- BBC News online: Barack Obama's 100-day report card (27 April 2009)
- BBC2 Newsnight: the committee system (April 7 2009)
