Professor Mark White
Professor of History
Location: Arts Two 2.09email: m.j.white@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7882 8376
Mark White received his PhD from Rutgers University, before taking up positions at the University of St Andrews and then Eastern Illinois University. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Illinois.
Research interests:
Professor White works in the field of recent United States history. The bulk of his scholarship has been on the presidency, particularly on the making of US foreign policy. He has published six books, including four on the Kennedy years, as well as various articles. In his work on JFK, he has made the case for a more balanced interpretation. While most historians have either lavished praise or poured scorn on Kennedy, Professor White sees his presidential record as mixed.
On the issue of Cuba, for example, he has argued that Kennedy’s policies prior to the 1962 missile crisis were misguided and probably played a role in causing the crisis, but that his handling of the crisis itself was far more adroit. In addition to his work on Kennedy’s foreign policy, Professor White has examined the relationship between JFK’s character and personality on the one hand and his brand of presidential leadership on the other. More recently, he has undertaken a study of dissent among presidential advisers on national security issues in the Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson years.
Postgraduate supervision:
Professor White would be happy to supervise PhD students working on the American presidency since 1945, particularly in the area of foreign relations.
Publications:
Against the President: Dissent and Decision-making in the White House: A Historical Perspective (Ivan R Dee, Chicago, 2007).
Kennedy: The New Frontier Revisited, ed (London, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1998)
Missiles in Cuba (Ivan R Dee, Chicago, 1997)
The Cuban Missile Crisis (London, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996)