Watergate @ 50: Looking Back and Looking Forward
 

Fifty years is often sufficient for revisionism to reshape our understanding of even the most complex and controversial subjects. Not so with Watergate. Today the history we have is remarkably similar to what journalists wrote in the 1970s. However, there is hope for a breakthrough in the near future.

Join us for this talk by Luke Nichter, American historian, professor of history and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University, and author or editor of eight books, including most recently The Year That Broke Politics. With introduction by Victor Davis Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

 


 

Select books by Luke Nichter

Books by Luke Nichter related to Nixon

Learn more about The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 by Luke Nichter from Yale University Press.


About the Speaker

Luke Nichter headshot

Luke A. Nichter is a Professor of History and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University. His area of specialty is the Cold War, the modern presidency, and U.S. political and diplomatic history, with a focus on the "long 1960s" from John F. Kennedy through Watergate. He is a New York Times bestselling author or editor of eight books, including, most recently, The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 (Yale University Press), which was chosen as a Best Book of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal.

 

 


About the Un-Presidented Speaker Series


The Un-Presidented Speaker Series highlights conversations with historians and experts of the Nixon era, and is presented by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in conjunction with the exhibition Un-Presidented: Watergate and Power in America now on view in the Lou Henry Hoover gallery of Hoover Tower at Stanford University.

 

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, September 15, 2026 6:30 PM ET
Markus Wolf
Book Talk: "The Troika: The Troika: A Story Of Three Families, Friendship, And The Cold War"
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives is partnering with the International Spy Museum to co-host a hybrid event on "The Troika", Markus Wolf'… International Spy Museum (700 L'Enfant Plaza, SW Washington DC 20024)
Thursday, September 24, 2026 12:00 PM PT
Yellow Peril Newspaper Excerpt
The Kaiser's Warning: How A 1908 Interview Wrongly Predicted The Transformation Of American Racism
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives at Stanford University and the Japanese Association for Migration Studies will co-host a virtual… Zoom
Friday, October 2, 2026
Democracy Without Shelter: How Mongolia Holds The Line
You are coordially invited to a fireside chat on Democracy Without Shelter: How Mongolia Holds the Line with Elbegdorj Tsakhia and H.R. McMaster on… Hauck Auditorium, David and Joan Traitel Building
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