Experts

Marc Selverstone

Director of Presidential Studies

Marc Selverstone

Director of Presidential Studies

Fast Facts

  • Director of presidential studies
  • Co-chair, Presidential Recordings Program
  • Won the Bernath Book Prize for Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain, and International Communism, 1945-1950.
  • Expertise on John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War

 

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Marc Selverstone is the Gerald L. Baliles Professor of Presidential Studies at the Miller Center, the Center's director of presidential studies, and co-chair of the Center’s Presidential Recordings Program. He earned a BA degree in philosophy from Trinity College (CT), a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University, and a PhD in history from Ohio University. 

A historian of the Cold War, Selverstone is the author of Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain, and International Communism, 1945-1950 (Harvard), which won the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. His most recent book is The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam (Harvard University Press).

As co-chair of the Presidential Recordings Program, Selverstone edits the secret White House tapes of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. He is the general editor of The Presidential Recordings Digital Edition, the primary online portal for transcripts of the tapes, published by the University of Virginia Press.

Selverstone’s broader scholarship focuses on presidents and presidential decision-making, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. He has written for journals and edited volumes on the Kennedy presidency, the Cold War, and the American war in Vietnam. He also co-edits the Miller Center’s “Studies on the Presidency” series (Virginia) with Miller Center Professor Guian McKee, and is the editor of A Companion to John F. Kennedy (Wiley-Blackwell). 

 

Marc Selverstone News Feed

To commemorate the 61st anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza hosted a conversation with historian Marc Selverstone, Director of Presidential Studies at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, based on his book, “The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam” (2022).
Marc Selverstone Sixth Floor Museum
Suspicions have persisted that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald was either not acting alone or was a patsy in the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Some people hoped that the federal government’s recent release of a trove of documents – approximately 80,000 pages related to the assassination – would back up those theories. But Marc Selverstone, the Gerald L. Baliles Professor, director of presidential studies and co-chair of the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, says that while the papers have points of interest, they don’t change the perspective of Oswald as the lone gunman.
Marc Selverstone UVA Today
Historian (and 1972 Staples High School graduate) Talmage Boston, discussed his new book, “How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents.” The moderator was 1980 Staples grad Marc Selverstone, the University of Virginia Miller Center of Public Affairs’ director of presidential studies. Referencing America’s 8 greatest presidents, Boston explored how their leadership traits can be applied today.
Marc Selverstone 06880: Where Westport Meets the World
“I didn’t really see anything to change the narrative indicating that Oswald as the lone gunman was the person who killed John F Kennedy and that it was not the result of a conspiracy,” Marc Selverstone, professor in presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, told Al Jazeera.
Marc Selverstone Al-Jazeera
Talmage Boston, acclaimed author and historian, discusses his new book, How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents, in a conversation with historian and Miller Center Senior Fellow Steven Gillon, moderated by Marc Selverstone, the Miller Center’s director of presidential studies. Drawing on the lives of America’s eight greatest presidents, Boston reveals the leadership traits that propelled them to success and explores how those same principles can be applied in today's world. With insightful analysis and personal reflections on figures like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, Boston offers a fresh perspective with timeless lessons.
Marc Selverstone, Steven M. Gillon Miller Center Presents
Selverstone says, that — unlike in 2017 — the Trump administration was ready to govern from Day One. “They had a very clear sense of what they wanted to do in terms of policy and execution, and who they wanted to have involved,” he notes.
Marc Selverstone 06880