Engel, Jeffrey A.

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended St. Catherine's College, Oxford, 1994; Cornell University, B.A., 1995; University of Wisconsin—Madison, M.A., 1996, Ph.D., 2001.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, 4220 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843-4220. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, educator. Yale University, New Haven, CT, Olin postdoctoral fellow in international security studies, 2001-03, lecturer in history, 2002-03, visiting fellow, 2007; National Parks Service, Washington, DC, principal investigator at Historic Resource Survey, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, 2002-03; University of Pennsylvania, lecturer in history and international relations, 2003-04; Texas A&M University, College Station, assistant professor of history and public policy, 2004—, Evelyn and Ed F. Kruse '49 Faculty Fellow, 2006—, and associate director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, 2007—. Research fellow, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library Institute, 1999; dissertation research fellow, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation, 1999; visiting research fellow, Eisenhower World Affairs Council, Eisenhower Library, 1999; visiting fellow, Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University, 2000-01; visiting assistant professor, Haverford College, 2004.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, Interna-tional Studies Association, Transatlantic Studies Association (member of executive committee, 2006—).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Guggenheim research fellow, 1999-2000; Bush Faculty Excellence Award, 2007.

WRITINGS:

(Principal investigator) The Missile Plains: Frontline of America's Cold War, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Midwest Regional Office (Omaha, NE), 2003.

Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2007.

(Editor) Local Consequences of the Global Cold War, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2008.

(Editor) The China Diary of George H.W. Bush: The Making of a Global President, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2008.

Seeking Monsters to Destroy: Language and War from Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2009.

(Editor, with Mark Lawrence and Andrew Preston) The United States and the World: A History in Documents, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2009.

Contributor to books, including Air Warfare: An International Encyclopedia, ABC-Clio, 2002; Facts on File Encyclopedia of American History, Facts on File (New York, NY), 2002; Europe since 1914, Scribner (New York, NY), 2006; and A Companion to International History, 1900-2001, Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Contributor to journals, including Diplomatic History, International Journal, New England Journal of History, American Communist History, History and Technology, Air & Space Magazine, Journal of Cold War Studies, and Enterprise & Society. Member of editorial board, Diplomatic History and the Journal of Transatlantic Studies.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jeffrey A. Engel is an assistant professor of history and public policy and the Evelyn and Ed F. Kruse '49 Faculty Fellow at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service. The classes he teaches at the Bush School concern American foreign policy and the evolution of international strategy, with primary research interests including diplomacy's domestic and localized effects, technology and foreign policy, and economic warfare. According to Angelina Garbarino, in a statement posted on the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University Web site: "Since his arrival, Dr. Engel has quickly acquired the respect of students and faculty. He uses humor and historical references to enhance the subject matter, resulting in classes that are both challenging and entertaining." Engel also serves as associate director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs and has been an Olin postdoctoral fellow in international security studies at Yale University and a visiting assistant professor at Haverford College. Engel has published several titles on the Cold War and on the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Among his books are The Missile Plains: Frontline of America's Cold War, Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy, Local Consequences of the Global Cold War, and The China Diary of George H.W. Bush: The Making of a Global President.

In Cold War at 30,000 Feet, Engel looks at the behind-the-scenes rivalry between Cold War allies England and the United States. Focusing on the aircraft industry, Engel argues that both countries wanted to sell jet aircraft to help rebuild their economies following World War II. England was essentially bankrupt after the war and required foreign trade. The United States possessed newly constructed aircraft factories unrivalled anywhere in the world. With worldwide influence at stake, along with millions of dollars in aircraft sales, the rivalry was intense. The two nations also hoped to assist their Cold War allies in the developing world to build strong militaries. Aircraft sales could also help weaken potential enemies. Engel looks at how sales of aircraft to China has evolved over the years, with England wanting to sell aircraft to that country long before the United States thought it advisable. But once an understanding had been reached with China, the United States quickly outpaced their English competitors. While the two powers sometimes found themselves at odds over such matters, and still have occasional disagreements, Engel shows that their relationship was never seriously harmed. Max Hastings, writing in the New York Review of Books, found that "Engel's book contains much that is interesting and unfamiliar." A critic for Publishers Weekly called Cold War at 30,000 Feet a "thoroughly researched, well-reasoned case study," while the reviewer for the Journal of American History found it to be "a fascinating read."

In Local Consequences of the Global Cold War, Engel collects scholarly articles which look at the many ways that the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union had repercussions at the local level across the world. Among the topics he examines are movies in Japan, race relations in the American South, forests in East Germany, and industry in the Soviet Union. Even in countries only peripherally involved in the global conflict, there were also changes wrought in such things as the types of crops grown or the kinds of products created for export.

In The China Diary of George H.W. Bush, Engel presents the private diaries of George H.W. Bush when he served as America's first ambassador to communist China. The diaries reveal Bush's pragmatic realism in dealing with a nation that had shut itself off from the outside world for many years and had been hostile to Western democracy. They also show the development of Bush's later approach to international relations when he served as the nation's forty-first president.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Diplomatic History, April, 2008, Jeff Woods, review of Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), May 31, 2008, Charles Burton, review of The China Diary of George H.W. Bush, p. D8.

Journal of American History, December, 2007, review of Cold War at 30,000 Feet.

New York Review of Books, August 27, 2007, Max Hastings, review of Cold War at 30,000 Feet.

Publishers Weekly, January 8, 2007, review of Cold War at 30,000 Feet, p. 46.

ONLINE

Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University Web site,http://bush.tamu.edu/news/faculty/jengel0208/ (May 15, 2008), Angelina Garbarino, "Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Jeffrey Engel."

Harvard University Press Web site,http://www.hup.harvard.edu/ (June 14, 2008), faculty profile.

Texas A&M University Web site,http://bush.tamu.edu/ (May 15, 2008), faculty profile.