Tom Arnold-Forster
Kinder Career Development Fellow in Atlantic History
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I am a historian of the modern United States. My research explores the political and intellectual histories of liberalism, democracy, and the state in the twentieth century. I also have interests in histories of journalism, political thought, and US foreign relations.
My first book,听听(Princeton, 2025), provides a new historical account of a leading political writer who shaped the development of American liberalism and democratic theory across the twentieth century. It won the 2025 History Book Award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and was reviewed in the听Nation,听Financial Times,听Wall Street Journal,听London Review of Books,听New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. You can hear me talk about the book on the New Books Network听.
I am currently writing a book about Watergate, tentatively titled听Visions of Watergate: Democracy and Legitimacy in the American State. By exploring a range of contemporary debates about what Watergate meant for the American state, and by moving beyond insider narratives about high politics and corruption, this book aims to rethink Watergate鈥檚 significance as a legitimacy crisis for American democracy. A pilot article from this project is forthcoming in the听Historical Journal.听I have also published on urban politics, media history, jazz history, and pedagogy.
At the RAI I work with colleagues at the University of Missouri to deliver the Kinder Institute鈥檚 MA in Atlantic History and Politics. Before coming to Oxford, I taught US history and the history of political thought at King鈥檚 College London. I completed my BA, MPhil, and PhD at the University of Cambridge, where I was also a Junior Research Fellow. My research has been supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Library of Congress, the University of Chicago Library, and the Newberry Library. I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Books:
听(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2025).
Visions of Watergate: Democracy and Legitimacy in the American State听(book project in development)
Articles and Chapters:
鈥淢ary McCarthy and the Watergate Crisis,鈥澨�Historical Journal听(accepted and forthcoming).
鈥�,鈥� in听Teaching American Studies in Britain: Perspectives and Possibilities, eds. Megan Hunt and Lydia Plath (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), 49鈥�55.
鈥�,鈥澨�American Journalism听40, no. 1 (2023): 51鈥�79. [Winner of the 2024 Dorothy Ross Prize, Society for US Intellectual History]
鈥�,鈥澨�Historical Journal听65, no. 5 (2022): 1374鈥�96.
鈥�,鈥澨�Journal of American Studies听56, no. 1 (2022): 142鈥�66.
鈥�,鈥澨�Modern Intellectual History听16, no. 2 (2019): 561鈥�92.
鈥�,鈥澨�Journal of American Studies听51, No. 1 (2017): 117鈥�39.
Reviews and Review Essays:
听by Casey Nelson Blake, Daniel H. Borus, and Howard Brick,听American Political Thought听10, no. 1 (2021): 158鈥�60.
鈥�,鈥澨�Historical Journal听63, no. 5 (2020): 1390鈥�1400.
鈥�,鈥澨�Global Intellectual History听5, no. 4 (2020): 390鈥�95.
I鈥檝e also written reviews for the听Los Angeles Review of Books,听the听Times Literary Supplement, and听Dissent.