Rate My Professor M. Todd Bennett

M. Todd Bennett is a Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History at East Carolina University. He holds a PhD from the University of Georgia. Bennett studies twentieth-century American history. Previously, he served as 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.

Bennett is the author of two books: 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, and One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). He edited volumes of the Foreign Relations of the United States, including National Security Policy, 1973-1976 (Volume XXXV, 2014), Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; Public Diplomacy, 1973-1976 (Volume XXXVIII, Part 2, 2014), and National Security Policy, 1969-1972 (Volume XXXIV, 2011). His publications include “Détente in Deep Water: The CIA Mission to Salvage a Sunken Soviet Submarine and US-USSR Relations, 1969–1975” (Intelligence and National Security, 2018), “The Spirits of ’76: Diplomacy Commemorating America’s Bicentennial in 1976” (Diplomatic History, 2016), “Teaching the Cold War Using the Foreign Relations of the United States Series” in Understanding and Teaching the Cold War (2016), “Global Culture and World War II” in A Companion to World War II (2012), and “Culture, Power, and Mission to Moscow: Film and Soviet-American Relations during the Second World War” (Journal of American History, 2001). He has contributed to the Washington Post, Diplomatic History, and Journal of American History, with appearances in Smithsonian Magazine, National Public Radio, and the Associated Press. Awards include the National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar fellowship (2017-18) and the Society for History in the Federal Government’s 2023 Member Award.