Garrett McKinnon

Bio

Garrett McKinnon is a historian of the United States in the World with wide ranging research interests. At NCSU, he has taught courses including American Military History, Spy vs. Spy: Cold War Intelligence History, the Vietnam War, and the World at War. McKinnon previously taught for several years in Duke University’s History Department offering courses on United States Political History, Civil War and Reconstruction in the United States, Cold War America, Modern Warfare, and the United States in the World.

McKinnon’s current book project, “Automating Violence: A History of United States Drone Warfare,” offers a cultural history of machine war, masculinity, and personal loss tracing U.S. drone war from its emergence during World War I up to the present moment.

McKinnon’s research has won fellowship and grant support from funding institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, the Eisenhower Foundation, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library, and the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering, and Technology.

During the 2023-2024 academic year, he is the inaugural Pearson Fellow in Aerospace History at the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering, and Technology.