Michael Nelson is the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College and a Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
In 2015, the American Political Science Association gave Nelson the Richard E. Neustadt Award for the Outstanding book on the Presidency and Executive Politics published during the previous year for Resilient America: Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling Dissent, and Dividing Government. He and his former Rhodes student and colleague, John Lyman Mason, won the Southern Political Science Association’s 2009 V.O. Key Award for Outstanding Book on Southern Politics for How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation.
According to a Hauenstein Center survey of college courses on the American presidency, two of Nelson’s books on the presidency rank among the top five most frequently studied: The Presidency and the Political System (first) and The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2021, with Sidney M. Milkis (fifth).
In the aftermath of every presidential election since 1984, Nelson has organized a group of political scientists around the country to write a book on the election. The Elections of 2024 will be the latest in that series.
In addition to his work on the presidency, Nelson also has published lengthy articles about Frank Sinatra, Garrison Keillor, C. S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, the military academies, the Iliad, the Odyssey and Aeneid, liberal education, baseball, football, and music.
Nelson teaches courses on the American presidency, southern politics, the Constitutional Convention, and presidential elections.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation
The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-2021
How College Presidents Succeed
