Paul C. Milazzo

Recent News

Education

• Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia (2001)
• M.A. from the University of Virginia (1991)
• A.B. from Amherst College (1991)

Research Interests

• United States; 20th Century
• Politics; Congressional Policy

Paul C. Milazzo is Associate Professor in the Department of History, which he joined in 2001. He specializes in 20th-century U.S. history. His areas of concentration include politics, political institutions, and federal policy, particularly after 1945. His research has focused on environmental policy making in the U.S. Congress. He has appeared on numerous television and radio broadcasts, including C-SPAN, Bloomberg Radio, and PBS.

He was a fellow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia in 2000-01 and an Intercollegiate Studies Institute/Lehrman American Studies Center Summer Institute Fellow in 2008. 

Current research interests include conservative politics and economic policy, as reflected in his latest book project—a biography of Henry Hazlitt, the influential libertarian journalist.

He has supervised M.A. and Ph.D. research projects on Jewish-African American relations following the Six Day War, the development of federal racketeering law, Supreme Court interpretations of eminent domain and property rights, and the environmental impact of railroad deregulation, among other topics. Prospective graduate students are encouraged to contact him about their own research interests.

Professor Milazzo lives in Vincent, OH with his wife, Laura, and two boys, Sam and Leo.

Fellowship & Awards

• Earhart Fellowship, 2013-14 ($40,000)

Publications

"Conservatism in the 1930s," in The Oxford Handbook of the New Deal, ed. Nancy Young (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2019).

“Environmental Policy: An Overview,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political, Policy, and Legal History, edited by Donald T. Critchlow and Philip R. VanderMeer (Oxford University Press, 2012).

"Review of Ronald Reagan, by Michael Schaller" in the Presidential Studies Quarterly, 8, no. 1 (March 2012): 225-27. 

Introduction to Business Tides: The Newsweek Era of Henry Hazlitt (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2011), pp. xxvi-liv.

“Nixon and the Environment,” in A Companion to Richard M. Nixon, edited by Melvin Small (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), pp. 270-91.

“Scholar’s Reaction in favor to the resolution ‘There’s too much government in my life (opens in a new window),’” Miller Center of Public Affairs/ABC This Week, “The Great American Debate,” (George Will & Paul Ryan vs. Barney Frank & Robert Reich), 18 December 2011.

"From Truman to Eisenhower: Rethinking Postwar Environmental ‘Consensus,’" in The Environmental Legacy of Harry Truman, edited by Karl Boyd Brooks (Truman State University Press, 2009).

"Using Congressional Sources, A Historian’s Perspective," in An American Political Archives Reader, edited by Karen D. Paul (Scarecrow Press, 2009).

Unlikely Environmentalists: Congress and Clean Water, 1945-1972 (University Press of Kansas, 2006; paperback edition, 2016).

"The Environment," The American Congress: The Building of Democracy, edited by in Julian Zelizer (Houghton-Mifflin, 2004).

Conferences

• "Passing the Torch: Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman, and the Evolution of the Free Market Public Economist, 1946-1974," Policy History Conference, Tempe, AZ, May 18, 2018.
• “The Long Shadow of the Great Society Congress: A Roundtable,” Policy History Conference, Nashville, TN, June 2016.
• “Internationalism in Once Lesson: Henry Hazlitt and the Problem with Bretton Woods, 1944-45” Policy History Conference, Columbus, OH, June 5, 2014.
• “Life in the Fast Lane: Highways and Auto-mobility in the 20th Century United States,” Invited Lecturer, Think History Teaching Workshop for Ohio School Teachers, Columbus, OH (June 11, 2013).
• Institute for Humane Studies, Academic Entrepreneurship Workshop, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (November 2-4, 2012), invited participant.
• “Editorializing the New Deal: The New York Times Era of Henry Hazlitt,” Policy History Conference, Richmond, VA, June 7, 2012.
• “New Approaches to Teaching About Congress,” Congress in the Classroom 2012, The Dirksen Congressional Center, East Peoria, IL (July 24, 2012).
• Institute for Humane Studies, Academic Entrepreneurship Workshop, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (November 2-4, 2012), invited participant.
• “Understanding Richard Nixon and His Era: A Symposium,” panel on Domestic Policy, Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, Yorba Linda, CA, July 22, 2011), broadcast on C-SPAN.

Teaching

• HIST 2010: United States Survey, 1865-Present
• HIST 3060/5060: United States Environmental History
• HIST 3100/5100: Emergency of the Modern United States: Progressive Era and the Roaring Twenties
• HIST 3104/5104: United States, 1945-Present
• HIST 3106/5106: History of American Conservatism
• HIST 3900: History Through Film: The United States in the 1970s
• HIST 4500: The New Deal and Its Challengers, 1933-1945
• HIST 6901: Graduate Research Seminar in 20th Century US History
• HIST 6901: Graduate Reading Colloquium in Post-1945 US History
• HIST 6901: Graduate Reading Colloquium in Pre-1945 US History
• CH 6020: Themes and Issues in Contemporary History (Environmental History)