Dr. Andrew L. Johns, Professor of History, received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2000 and joined the faculty at Brigham Young University in 2004. He previous employment includes teaching at Gonzaga University and as a historian in the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State. His research focuses on U.S. foreign relations and political history during the Cold War, with a particular interest in the presidency, the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy, and the constitutional “invitation to struggle” over foreign policy between the executive and legislative branches.
Dr. Johns is the author or editor of seven books, including, Vietnam’s Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War (2010); The Price of Loyalty: Hubert Humphrey’s Vietnam Conflict (2020); and Shaping a Peaceful World: The United States and Post-Conflict Diplomacy since 1789 (2026). His current research includes Unwitting Conspiracy, a history of the creation and expansion of the imperial presidency by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches; a reconsideration of Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” through the lens of poker; and a global history of 1972, the year that made the modern United States.
In addition to his scholarship, Dr. Johns has held elected office for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Society for History in the Federal Government, and the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association (including as president in 2018-2019); served as editor of Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review from 2011-2025; is general editor of the “Studies in Conflict, Diplomacy, and Peace” book series, published by the University of Notre Dame Press; was a founding donor for SHAFR’s Walter LaFeber-Molly Wood Prize for Distinguished Teaching; and was the founding donor for the PCB-AHA’s Tonous and Warda Johns Family Book Award, which recognizes the outstanding monograph or edited volume in the history of U.S. foreign relations, military history, or immigration history. He received the Peter L. Hahn Distinguished Service Award from SHAFR in 2025.
Dr. Johns teaches courses on U.S. history, the Cold War, U.S. foreign relations, and the presidency.