Teaches American diplomatic history, twentieth century American history, and the history of Canada.
He has particular interests in presidential biography and environmental history.
Professor Clements regularly teaches the U.S. history survey course (both the regular and Honors
College versions), American diplomatic history from the Revolution to the present at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels, the history of the U.S. since 1945, a one-semester survey
course on Canadian history, the departments senior seminar, and a graduate seminar on
twentieth-century U.S. history. He has team-taught graduate seminars in twentieth-century
American diplomatic history and presidential studies with colleagues in the Political Science
department. His books include: William Jennings Bryan, Missionary Isolationist (1982);
James F. Byrnes and the Origins of the Cold War (editor, 1982); Woodrow Wilson:
World Statesman (1987); The Presidency of Woodrow Wilson (1992); Hoover, Conservation,
and Consumerism: Engineering the Good Life (2000); and Woodrow Wilson
(co-authored with Eric A. Cheezum, 2003).
Current Activities:
I have spent many months over the past few years in the reading room of the Herbert
Hoover Presidential Library in Iowa working my way through the mountains of documents
covering Hoovers period as Secretary of Commerce. The information thus gleaned is to
provide the foundations for the fourth volume in the quasi-official biography of Hoover
that is being sponsored by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association.
It will pick up the story at the end of World War I in 1918, where the third volume
by George Nash concluded, and carry it through the election of 1928 when Hoover was
elected President. The presidency and Hoovers post presidential years will be covered
by David Hamilton and Gary Dean Best. I find the 1918-28 period the most interesting of
Hoovers political career, both because of his amazing work in relieving famine and
suffering in Europe after World War I, and because of the enormous breadth and creativity
of his activities while he was Secretary of Commerce, during which it was rightly said that
he was Secretary of Commerce and undersecretary of everything else.
To see Professor Clements cv and the outlines of his lectures for History 112, click here
http://www.cas.sc.edu/hist/faculty/clements/cvclements.html
