Christopher Moran
|
Professor of US National Security Room: E1.21 Telephone: 02476 150205 Email: christopher.moran@warwick.ac.uk |
Personal Details Professor Christopher R. Moran, FRHistS
Biography Christopher Moran is Deputy Chair/Deputy Vice-Provost of the Faculty of Social Sciences (Research). In this role, he provides strategic leadership on research matters within the faculty and works with SMT colleagues on faculty initiatives including "The Future of the Social Sciences" and the "Big Questions of the Social Sciences". He chairs the Faculty Research and Impact Committee, the Faculty PGR Scholarships Management Group, and the Faculty Impact Case Study Reading Group. He is also deputy chair of the ESRC Impact Accelerator Account Management Committee. Alongside this faculty role, he holds a personal chair in US National Security in the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS). Christopher has been at Warwick for some 25 years, completing a BA in History in 2003, an MA in 2004, and a PhD in 2009. Between 2008 and 2011 he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the AHRC-funded project, 'Landscapes of Secrecy: The CIA and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy', which included a 6 month Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Between 2011 and 2014, he held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship to write a history of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and the CIA, a project that remains in progress. During this time, he enjoyed 6 months as a Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. In 2012 he became an Assistant Professor in PAIS and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014. He was appointed to Reader in June 2018 and Professor in August 2021. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS), a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and in 2025 he started a three-year fellowship with the Global and National Security Institute, at the University of South Florida. Research Interests Operating at the interdisciplinary crossroads between International Security, Diplomatic History and Intelligence Studies, Christopher specializes in the work of British and American secret services, especially the CIA. He is the author of 2 monographs and 4 co-edited collections. In 2013 his PhD thesis was published by Cambridge University Press as Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain and won the St Ermin’s Intelligence Book of the Year Award. In 2016, he completed his second single-authored monograph, Company Confessions: Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA, which was published by St. Martin's Press in the US and Biteback in the UK. Taken together, these two books speak to the dominant theme of his research to date – government secrecy. Provisionally entitled 'The Sinews of Security', he is currently writing a history of the turbulent relationship between Nixon, Kissinger, and the CIA. Based on over a decade's research in the US, drawing on declassified records and private papers from some 42 states, the book assesses the CIA's role in helping 'Nixinger' to end the war in Vietnam, engineer rapprochement with China, and pursue détente with the Soviet Union in a complex geopolitical chess game of high stakes. He is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, which have been published in a range of political science and historical journals, including: Foreign Affairs, International Affairs, Journal of Global Security Studies, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, British Politics, Intelligence and National Security, Political Studies, English Historical Review, Journal of Cold War Studies, Journal of American Studies, and International History Review. His literary interests are represented by the Andrew Lownie Literary Agency Ltd. Other Professional Activities Christopher is co-editor-in-chief of Intelligence and National Security, the preeminent journal in the field, with seven issues per year. Before this, between 2014 and 2024, he co-edited the Journal of Intelligence History. Together with Mark Pythian (Leicester) and Mark Stout (John Hopkins), he is the founding co-editor of two intelligence book series with Georgetown University Press. Beyond the academy, he has worked as a historical consultant to the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. and the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. His work with various non-academic stakeholders has been captured in two REF impact case studies, co-authored with his long-time collaborator and friend Richard Aldrich: One, 'Landscapes of Secrecy: Influencing the Public and Professional Debate about Intelligence, Secrecy and Openness (2014)'; and Two, 'From Closed Past to Open Future: Strengthening Formal and Informal Oversight of Secret Intelligence (2021). Teaching Owing to his management role, Christopher will not be teaching in 2025/26. PhD Supervision Christopher is happy to consider requests to supervise PhD dissertations on Intelligence, US Foreign Policy, Modern British Political History, Cyber Security, and International Affairs more broadly. To date he has supervised 10 PhD students to successful completion. All of these individuals have secured permanent positions and/or early career fellowships. He has been internal/examiner examiner for 19 PhD theses. |
|
|
|
||
