M. Todd Bennett

Professor
PhD, University of Georgia

Office: Brewster A-319

Phone: 252-328-1033

Todd Bennett studies twentieth-century American history. He is the author of two books, including Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency (Columbia University Press, 2023), winner of the Society for History in the Federal Government’s 2023 Book Award.

Bennett has contributed to the Washington Post, Diplomatic History, the Journal of American History, and other publications. Media appearances include National Public Radio, the Associated Press, and Smithsonian Magazine. The National Endowment for the Humanities named him a Public Scholar in 2017-18. He won the Society for History in the Federal Government’s 2023 Member Award, given for excellence in scholarship on the history of the federal government.

Bennett was formerly a historian at the U.S. Department of State, where he edited the Foreign Relations of the United States series, the official documentary record of U.S. foreign policy. He taught at George Washington University, the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and the University of Nevada–Reno.

Selected Publications:

Books

Neither Confirm nor Deny: How the Glomar Mission Shielded the CIA from Transparency. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023, https://cup.columbia.edu/book/neither-confirm-nor-deny/9780231193474.

One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012, https://uncpress.org/book/9781469628301/one-world-big-screen/.

Documentary Collections

National Security Policy, 1973-1976. Vol. XXXV of Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1969-1976. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2014, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v35.

Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; Public Diplomacy, 1973-1976. Vol. XXXVIII, pt. 2, of FRUS, 1969-1976. Washington, DC: USGPO, 2014, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v38p2.

National Security Policy, 1969-1972. Vol. XXXIV of FRUS, 1969-1976. Washington, DC: USGPO, 2011, http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v34

Selected Articles and Chapters

“Détente in Deep Water: The CIA Mission to Salvage a Sunken Soviet Submarine and US-USSR Relations, 1969–1975,” Intelligence and National Security 33 (2018): 196–210.

“The Spirits of ’76: Diplomacy Commemorating America’s Bicentennial in 1976.” Diplomatic History 40 (September 2016): 695-721.

“Teaching the Cold War Using the Foreign Relations of the United States Series.” In Understanding and Teaching the Cold War, ed. Matthew Masur. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2016.

“Global Culture and World War II.” In A Companion to World War II, ed. Thomas W. Zeiler with Daniel M. DuBois, 754-772. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

“Culture, Power, and Mission to Moscow: Film and Soviet-American Relations during the Second World War.” Journal of American History 88 (September 2001): 489-518.

Courses Offered:

HIST 1051: American History Since 1877
HIST 2444: History of Sports in Western Society
HIST 3200: Diplomatic History of the United States
HIST 3240: The Age of Franklin Roosevelt, 1919-1945
HIST 3245: The United States Since 1945
HIST 6050: The Great Depression, New Deal, and World War II
HIST 6055: The United States Since 1945
HIST 6181: Diplomatic History of the United States Since 1898