About
About Gil Troy
Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal and a Visiting Scholar affiliated with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.
His latest book Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents will be published this June by Basic Books. This spring the University Press of Kansas released the paperback edition of his book Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady, having been published in hard cover in 2006. Troy is the author of Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s, published in 2005 by Princeton University Press and released in paperback in 2007. It has been called a “masterly study of Ronald Reagan’s presidency - the best single book we have on his administration to date.” His two other works in American history were Mr. and Mrs. President: From the Trumans to the Clintons (2000) - first published by The Free Press as Affairs of State: The Rise and Rejection of the Presidential Couple Since World War II and See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate, originally published by the Free Press in 1991, then released in an updated paperback edition by Harvard University Press in 1997.
Troy is a native of Queens, New York. He received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. After receiving his Ph. D in History in 1988, he taught History and Literature at Harvard for two years. In September 1990, Troy became an assistant professor of history at McGill University. In 1995, Troy was promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure. From 1997 to 1998 he served as chairman of McGill’s history department. In March, 1999 he was promoted to Full Professor. Maclean’s magazine has repeatedly labeled him one of McGill’s “Popular Profs” and the History News Network designated him one of its first 12 “Top Young Historians”.
About the Leading From the Center blog
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy-most would agree their presidencies were among the most successful in American history. But what made these very different men such effective leaders? According to presidential historian Gil Troy, these presidents succeeded not because of their bold political visions, but because of their moderation. Although many of the presidential hopefuls for 2008 will claim to be moderates, the word cannot conceal a political climate defined by extreme rhetoric and virulent partisanship. In Leading From the Center, Gil Troy argues that this is a distinctly un-American state of affairs. As America lines up to select a president for the future, Gil Troy astutely reminds us of the finest traditions of presidential leadership from our nation’s past.
