Gregory A. Daddis
Professor
USS Midway Chair in Modern U.S. Military History
Director, Center for War and Society
Office: AL 528
Email: [email protected]
Education
Ph.D. History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2009)
M.A. History, Villanova University (1998)
B.S. International Relations, United States Military Academy, West Point (1989)
Gregory A. Daddis is originally from the Garden State of New Jersey and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, a Master’s degree from Villanova University, and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the recipient of the 2022-2023 Fulbright Distinguished Scholar Award, Pembroke College, University of Oxford.
After graduating from West Point, Daddis served for 26 years in the US Army, retiring as a colonel. He is a veteran of both Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom and his military awards include the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, and the Meritorious Service Medals. His final assignment in the army was as the Chief of the American History Division in the Department of History at the United States Military Academy.
Daddis specializes in Cold War history with an emphasis on the American war in Vietnam. He has authored five books, including his most recent with Cambridge University Press, Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines (2020). Daddis also has published a trilogy on the American war in Vietnam with Oxford University Press: Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam (2017), Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam (2014) and No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War (2011). Additionally, he has published scholarly articles in some of his field’s leading journals, to include The Journal of Cold War Studies, The Journal of Military History, and The Journal of Strategic Studies.
Daddis also has participated in a number of initiatives to help educate the larger public on historical matters. He worked as an official advisor to Florentine Films for the 2017 Ken Burns-Lynn Novick documentary, The Vietnam War, and has led multiple tours to Vietnam for educational purposes. As part of his military deployments, he served as the Command Historian to the US Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) in Baghdad, Iraq. Daddis also has been a panelist for grant reviews with the National Endowment for the Humanities, performed as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for The Journal of Military History, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Society for Military History. He also is a board member for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Daddis has published several op-ed pieces commenting on current military affairs, to include writings in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and National Interest magazine.
Before joining the History Department at SDSU, he directed the M.A. Program in War and Society Studies at Chapman University
Books
Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Withdrawal: Reassessing America’s Final Years in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Westmoreland’s War: Reassessing American Strategy in Vietnam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Fighting in the Great Crusade: An 8th Infantry Artillery Officer in World War II. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.
Journal Articles
“To Build a Dike,” Wartime: The Official Magazine of the Australian War Memorial, No. 92, Spring 2020.
“Planning for a War in Paradise: The 1966 Honolulu Conference and the Shape of the Vietnam War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 21, No. 3, Summer 2019.
“Mansplaining Vietnam: Male Veterans and America’s Popular Image of the Vietnam War,” Journal of Military History, Vol. 82, No. 1, January 2018.
“A Disconnected Dialogue: American Military Strategy, 1964-1968,” Oklahoma Humanities Vol.10, No. 2, Fall-Winter 2017.
“Faith in War: The American Roots of Global Conflict,” Parameters: The US Army War College Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4, Winter 2016-2017.
“Ia Drang ¿Una victoria sin precedentes?” Desperta Ferro Contemporánea, No. 6, November 2014.
“Mired in a Quagmire: Popular Interpretations of the Vietnam War,” Orbis, Vol. 57, No. 4, Autumn 2013.
“Out of Balance: Evaluating American Strategy in Vietnam, 1968–72,” War & Society Vol. 32, No. 3, October 2013.
“‘A Better War?’ – The View from the Nixon White House,” The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3, June 2013.
“Eating Soup with a Spoon: The U.S. Army as a ‘Learning Organization’ in the Vietnam War,” Journal of Military History, Vol. 77, No. 1, January 2013.
“The Problem of Metrics: Assessing Progress and Effectiveness in the Vietnam War,” War in History, Vol. 19, Issue 1, January 2012.
“Beyond the Brotherhood: Reassessing US Army Combat Relationships in the Second World
War,” War & Society, Vol. 29, No. 2, October 2010.
Book Chapters
“The False Alternative: Reconsidering American Strategy in Vietnam,” in The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, Vol. II, eds. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen and Andrew Preston, New York: Cambridge University Press, (forthcoming)
“Victory, Defeat, or Stalemate? Doubt and Uncertainty in America’s Withdrawal from Vietnam,” in The Cambridge History of the Vietnam War, Vol. III, eds. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen and Pierre Asselin, New York: Cambridge University Press, (forthcoming)
“Introduction” to reissue of Thomas C. Thayer, War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2016.
“Choosing Progress: Evaluating the ‘Salesmanship’ of the Vietnam War in 1967,” in Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure, eds. Leo J. Blanken, Hy Rothstein, and Jason J. Lepore. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015.
“CORDS in Charge: Organizing for Pacification Support in the Vietnam War,” in Stand Up and Fight! The Creation of U.S. Security Organizations, 1942-2005, eds. Ty Seidule and Jacqueline Whitt. Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studies Institute, 2015.
“American Military Strategy in the Vietnam War, 1965–1973,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, ed. Jon Butler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
“The Myth of an American Attrition Strategy in the Vietnam War,” in The Routledge Handbook of American Military and Diplomatic History, 1865 to the Present, eds. Antonio S. Thompson and Christos G. Frentzos. New York: Routledge, 2013.
“Armageddon’s Lost Lessons: Combined Arms Operations in Allenby’s Palestine Campaign.” Air Command and Staff College, Wright Flyer Paper No. 20, Maxwell Air Force Base, Al.: Air University Press, 2005.