Ken Osgood

Kenneth Osgood is Professor of History and Director of the McBride Honors Program and the J. Don Thorson First Year Honors Experience. A specialist in U.S. History, Ken’s research interests include the history of propaganda and intelligence, the history of media, advertising and public relations, and U.S. political and diplomatic history.

Before coming to Mines, Ken taught for ten years at Florida Atlantic University, where he directed the Alan B. Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency. Ken also has been the Stanley Kaplan Professor of American Foreign Policy (Williams College) and the Mary Ball Washington Professor of American History (University College Dublin), as well as a research fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies (Ohio State) and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (UCSD). He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Ken also served as associate editor of the journal Diplomatic History, and a series editor of Palgrave’s History of the Media series. In addition to his academic work, Ken has been interviewed by NPR and other media outlets and podcasts; he has lectured on the cable television channel C-SPAN; and he appeared in the documentary films Love, Hate, and Propaganda (Canadian Broadcasting Company) and CIA Declassified “The Deadly Phantom Coup” (Discovery).

Like many other California natives, Ken fulfilled his lifelong dream of living in Colorado when he moved to Golden in 2011.

Curriculum Vitae

Research

Winning While Losing?: Civil Rights, the Conservative Movement, and the Presidency from Nixon to Obama (edited with Derrick E. White, 2014).