About Ben Zdencanovic

About Ben Zdencanovic

Ben Zdencanovic (pronounced sten-CHAN-oh-vich) is a Postdoctoral Associate at the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. Ben is a historian of the United States in the world, domestic and international politics, and economic and social policy. He has a particular interest in the relationship between U.S. global power and the politics of redistribution and the welfare state.

Ben is currently working on two book projects: Island of Enterprise: The United States in a World of Welfare, 1940–1955 (forthcoming, Princeton University Press), and The Cold War on Poverty: Race, Labor, and Manpower in the U.S. Warfare/Welfare State.

Ben has published peer-reviewed articles in Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Radical History Review, and Diplomatic History. In addition to his scholarly writing, he has written essays on history, policy, and politics for popular audiences in outlets such as the Conversation, Jacobin, the Boston Review, TIME, and the Washington Post.

His writing and research have been supported by numerous grants and fellowships from such sources as the Yale Macmillan Center, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Roosevelt and Truman presidential libraries, the University of Illinois Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Ben earned his doctorate with distinction from the Department of History at Yale in 2019, where his dissertation was the winner of the Edwin W. Small Prize for outstanding work in United States history. Prior to coming to UCLA, Ben was a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Jackson School for Global Affairs and an Assistant Instructional Professor at the University of Chicago.