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Jeffrey Engel

Keynote Speaker

Founding Director, Center for Presidential History, Southern Methodist University; Prize-winning author or editor of thirteen books on American diplomacy and politics; Podcast Host, "The Past, the Promise, The Presidency"

Jeffrey A. Engel is widely considered the leading presidential historian of his generation. Educated at Cornell University, Oxford University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale University, he is a frequent media contributor, award-winning teacher, and has authored or edited thirteen books on American diplomacy and politics.

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Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo

Jeffrey Engel brings the past alive. Today’s problems are nothing new. The United States has faced wars, pandemics, and political division before. While history is an imperfect guide to enacting a better future, it’s the best guide we have. It’s also a guide both for, and full of, people. While others might focus on the dry and statistical view of the past, Engel goes inside the lives of the people on the ground who made history happen. From the White House to the front lines to the factory floor, he shares new revelations and insights, with humor to help us find a way forward by studying those who walked the same path before.

Featured Videos

Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo
Jeffrey Engel

Jeffrey Engel on Frost/Nixon

Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo
Jeffrey Engel

Jeffrey Engel on How the Presidency Has Evolved

Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo
Jeffrey Engel

Jeffrey Engel on Russia

Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo
Jeffrey Engel

Jeffrey Engel on the History of Impeachment

Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo
Jeffrey Engel

Jeffrey Engel on Potential North Korea Progress

Jeffrey Engel Profile Photo
Jeffrey Engel

Jeffrey Engel on Potential North Korea Progress

Jeffrey Engel on Frost/Nixon

Jeffrey Engel on How the Presidency Has Evolved

Jeffrey Engel on Russia

Jeffrey Engel on the History of Impeachment

Jeffrey Engel on Potential North Korea Progress

Jeffrey Engel’s Speech Topics

  • Surviving America’s Existential Crises

    Every generation faces crises. Yet only three times in our nation’s history has the republic’s very existence been in doubt. George Washington left his well-earned retirement to provide a symbol of stability and virtue the new nation would not have formed without. Abraham Lincoln oversaw a country rent in two. Franklin D. Roosevelt governed during an economic crisis so great many wondered if democracy itself could survive. Today our politically-riven nation may well face only the fourth existential crisis in its long history, and only the lessons of the past can help navigate the rocky shoals ahead.

  • What Would FDR Say Today

    George Washington set precedents. Lincoln preserved the union. But only Franklin D. Roosevelt won the nation’s highest office four times. Only Roosevelt faced an economic crisis so severe it remains our benchmark for calamity. Only Roosevelt saw a world on the brink, knowing that his leadership was all that stood between isolationism and war. Known to subsequent generations by his easily-recalled initials, FDR, he defined American politics for a generation and for generations to come. He’s not here with us now. If he were, what would he say and do?

  • The Untold Story of the Cold War’s End, and Why We Are All Lucky to Have Survived

    The Cold War shouldn’t have ended peacefully. Rarely if ever throughout world history has a great power collapsed without an ensuing great power war. Never before had the world faced an empire’s collapse with 20,000 nuclear weapons in the mix. The story of the Cold War’s surprisingly peaceful end is both remarkable, and largely unknown. The Berlin Wall opened by accident, for example. Nuclear war nearly occurred several times as well, beyond the public’s eye. German reunification, meanwhile, terrified past witnesses to that nation’s violent past yet also set the tone for the international system we still inhabit today. Examining our surprising survival reveals what really matters in times of crisis: the character of our leaders…and luck.

  • Putin and the Presidents

    US-Russian relations are at a new post-Cold War low. But those tensions go far beyond the current crisis over Ukraine. Russian-American antagonisms stem instead from long-standing geopolitical differences — different worldviews, really — held by American and Russian leaders since the Cold War’s End. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev set the stage for change, but only one man has been a constant in their critical bilateral relationship since: Vladimir Putin. His personal story reveals much of why the world is at war with Russia today, a story told through the evolution of his relationship with the U.S. Presidents he’s known: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.  

Works by Jeffrey Engel

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