Joseph Ledford is a Hoover Fellow and the Assistant Director of the Hoover History Lab at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he also serves as the Vice Chair of the Hoover Applied History Working Group.
A historian of U.S. foreign relations, Ledford’s research and writing generally focus on the exercise of American power in the world, with a particular emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. He’s also concerned with the role of the presidency and the domestic politics of foreign policy, broadly construed. Other interests include the uses and abuses of history in policymaking.
Ledford is currently finalizing the manuscript of a new comprehensive history of the Iran-Contra affair. Tentatively titled Of Scandal and Power: A History of the Iran-Contra Affair, it will examine the scandal from its origins in the politics of the 1970s through its resolution in the mid-1990s. He is also a co-editor of
the forthcoming History’s Dead-Hand Grip: Politics, Statecraft, and “Lessons” of the Past. Set for release in 2026, this book will feature eight scholars, including Ledford, exploring the uses and misuses of history in policymaking across seven countries, from the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to Brazil, Indonesia, China, and North Korea.
Ledford frequently provides analysis and commentary on U.S. foreign policy and issues of national security. He has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere.
His writing has appeared in The National Interest, RealClearDefense, Defense & Security Analysis, Defining Ideas, War on the Rocks, The Journal of Military History, H-War, and the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence. His research has received support from institutions such as the Everett M. Dirksen Congressional Center, the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Prior to becoming a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Ledford was an America in the World Consortium Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Before joining Johns Hopkins SAIS, he served as an AWC Pre-doctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin. He remains an affiliated scholar of the America in the World Consortium. In August of 2022, Ledford received his Ph.D. from the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a Graduate Student Affiliate of the Institute of International Studies.
