Joseph A. Ledford is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A historian of U.S. foreign relations, Ledford’s research and writing generally focus on the individuals and institutions responsible for the exercise of American power in the world, particularly the role of the presidency, and the domestic politics of foreign policy, broadly construed. He is also deeply interested in the uses of history in policymaking.
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. 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.
Ledford is currently finalizing the manuscript of his first book, tentatively titled Of Scandal and Power: A History of the Iran-Contra Affair. This book offers a new comprehensive account of the Iran-Contra affair, from the scandal’s origins in the politics of the 1970s through its resolution in the mid-1990s.
He is also conducting research for two new projects. The first project will examine the misuses and abuses of history in policymaking. Given that policymakers habitually misuse history, this book will seek to teach decision-makers how to become critical users of historical reasoning by helping them understand the abuses of the past.
His second project will follow the history of Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s aphorism that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” Conceived as a diplomatic and political history of the bipartisan consensus on U.S. global leadership, this book will explore the historical development of bipartisanship in U.S. foreign policy from the Second World War to the present day.
Ledford’s writing has appeared in The National Interest, RealClearDefense, Defense & Security Analysis, 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.
