Welcome to our new blog, “Go Back 2 Come Back.” We are scholars who have worked and written together now for 20 years. We have co-authored 4 books, numerous book chapters and essays, and too many newspaper columns to count. What we have learned, and are eager to share with you, is the value of going back into history to learn about the origins and development of policy questions in the air today, then come back to apply what history teaches us to our current problems and questions.
David Davenport is a research fellow emeritus at the Hoover Institution specializing in constitutional federalism, civic education, modern American conservatism and international law.
Davenport has coauthored three books: “How Public Policy Became War” (2019), “Rugged Individualism” (2017) and “The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism” (2013) with additional books to be published in 2023 on equality of opportunity and the civic education crisis.
He has also authored articles in Policy Review on “The New Diplomacy” and “The Politics of Literacy,” and has been a regular columnist for the Washington Examiner, Scripps Howard News Service, the San Francisco Chronicle and Forbes.com. He was also a regular commentator on the Salem Radio Network.
Davenport is the former president of Pepperdine University (1985–2000). Under his leadership, the University experienced significant growth in quality and reputation. Davenport cofounded Common Sense California and the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership. He has been active in efforts to reform governance in California, having served as a member of Governor Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review Commission and as a board member of California Forward. Davenport has served on several corporate and nonprofit boards as well.
Davenport earned a B.A. with distinction in international relations from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and earned national and international awards in moot court competitions.
Gordon Lloyd is the Robert and Katheryn Dockson Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in economics and political science at McGill University. He completed all the course work toward a doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago before receiving his master of arts and PhD degrees in government at Claremont Graduate School. The coauthor of three books on the American founding and sole author of a book on the political economy of the New Deal, he also has numerous articles, reviews, and opinion-editorials to his credit. His latest coauthored book, The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry, was published in 2013, and he most recently released as editor, Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, in September 2014. He is the creator, with the help of the Ashbrook Center, of four highly regarded websites on the origin of the Constitution. He has received many teaching, scholarly, and leadership awards including admission to Phi Beta Kappa and the Howard White Award for Teaching Excellence at Pepperdine University. He currently serves on the National Advisory Council for the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Presidential Learning Center through the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.
- Ph.D., Claremont Graduate School, 1973, Distinction
- M.A., Claremont Graduate School, 1968
- B.A., McGill University, Montreal, 1963