Robert Griffith was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in Southern Indiana.  He earned his B.A. at DePauw University, where he was a Rector Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  He received his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow.  He has taught at the University of Georgia  and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he also served as Chair of the Department of History.

 From 1989 to 1995, Griffith served as Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland at College Park.  At Maryland, he helped implement a rigorous new core curriculum, dramatically increased the presence of women and minority faculty and staff, coordinated planning and design for the new $130 million Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts, and helped make the college a campus leader in the use of innovative information technologies.  From 1995 to 1997, he served as Provost at American University, where he improved faculty recruitment, sharply increased the presence of minority faculty, enhanced the role of  new information technologies, and helped prepare the university's new strategic plan, "Building a Global University."  He is currently Professor of  History at American University and since December, 2004, has served as Chair of the Department.

A historian, Griffith is author of The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate (1970; 2nd edition, 1987), which won the Frederick Jackson Turner Prize of the Organization of American Historians.  The Politics of  Fear is available in digital format through net.Library, and has been selected for inclusion in the first stage of the History E-Book Project of the American Council of Learned Societies.  His articles and essays have appeared in many scholarly journals, including the American Historical Review, the Journal of American History, Reviews in American History and Business History Review.   Among his edited works are: The Specter: Original Essays on McCarthyism and the Cold War (1974); Ike's Letters to a Friend: 1941-1958 (1984); and Major Problems in American History Since 1945 (1992). A new edition of Major Problems in American History since 1945, co-edited with Paula Baker, appeared in January, 2001; a 3rd edition in January 2007. Griffith has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Harry S. Truman Library Institute.  He has served on the Board of Editors of the Journal of American History.  He has received teaching awards from the University of Georgia and from the Danforth Foundation.  He is currently serving as Treasurer of the Organization of American Historians. For details, consult his cv.
 

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