About

Kyle Longley is a Professor of History at Chapman University and the director of the M.A. in War and Society program.

 

Longley joined the Chapman faculty in July 2020 after serving at Arizona State University (ASU) since1995, becoming the Snell Family Dean's Distinguished Professor in 2003. He served as the director of the LBJ Presidential Library from 2018 to 2019 before happily returning to academia. 

  

Longley has published nine books which include: 

 

The Sparrow and the Hawk:  Costa Rica and the United States During the Rise of José Figueres (1997)

 

In the Eagle's Shadow:  The United States and Latin America 

(2003, 2009 2nd edition)

 

Senator Albert Gore Sr.:  Tennessee Maverick (2004). Forward by Al Gore, Jr.

 

Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America's Fortieth President  (editor and contributor, 2006)

 

Grunts:  The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam  

(2008, 2nd edition, 2020)

 

The Morenci Marines:  A Tale of Small Town America and the Vietnam War  (2013) - Winner of the Southwest Book Award from the Arizona Historical Society

 

Reagan and the World:  Leadership and National Security, 1981-1989  (Co-editor with Bradley Coleman and contributor, 2017)

 

 LBJ's 1968:  Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval (2018)

 

In Harm's Way:  A History of the American Military Experience ,

Co-author (2019)  
 

Dr. Longley has also served as an associate editor for the Encyclopedia of United States-Latin American Relations (2012) with Thomas Leonard and is now a lead editor in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin America (2018 - present). Currently, he is writing The Forever Soldiers: Americans at War in Afghanistan and Iraq  for Cambridge University Press and The Unlucky Ones: Lima Company and the Marines in Iraq. 

 

His books have earned prizes including the Southeastern Council on Latin American Relations A.B. Thomas Award, the Best Book on Arizona History from the Arizona/New Mexico Book Co-op Committee, and the Southwest Book Award from the Arizona Historical Society.   

​

His opinion pieces have appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Arizona Republic, San Antonio Express News, Austin American Statesman and CNN.  He has consulted with other media outlets including ABC News, NPR, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Slate, and Voice of America. Longley has published numerous articles and essays in Diplomatic History, Pacific Historical Review, Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Review of Faith and International Affairs, AHA Perspectives, and The Americas. 

​

At ASU, Dr. Longley offered a wide array of undergraduate and graduate courses. His most popular undergraduate classes included Modern U.S. Foreign Relations, U.S.-Latin American Relations, the American Experience in Vietnam, Wars of the Modern Middle East, American Military History, and America's Guerrilla Wars. At the graduate level, he offered the United States and the World, Modern American Military History, and Modern U.S. History since 1898, among countless others. He has served on more than forty Ph.D. and M.A. committees, directing more than a dozen dissertations over his many years, as well as working as a mentor to graduate students on the topic of pedagogy. 

​

Over the span of more than two decades, his work with students has received continuous recognition.  The Associated Students of ASU named him Centennial Professor as the outstanding teacher at ASU, a particularly gratifying award as a panel of students and faculty made the selection from a pool of more than 2,000 faculty members. He is the winner of the Zebulon Pearce Award for Outstanding Teacher in the Humanities and received the ASU Habitat for Humanity “Making the World a Cooler Place to Live” Teaching Award.   

 

Dr. Longley served in numerous administrative positions at ASU, including the director of graduate studies for the History Department, as faculty head, and associate director of the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. At the university level, he contributed widely, serving on the Provost Committee on Retention and Graduation and the Graduate College Fellowships and Diversity Committee, most notably.

 

Beyond the university, he has been active in professional organizations including the American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. 

​

A native of West Texas, Dr. Longley is the son of a high school football coach. He grew up drawing offensive plays by his father's side (and occasionally in church). He received his B.A. from Angelo State University where he competed on the Track and Field team. He earned his M.A. from Texas Tech University and went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky studying under George Herring. Dr. Longley lives with his wife and youngest son in Southern California. His oldest son attends Chapman University and like his dad, will compete in Track and Field.