MICHAEL STEWART FOLEY is a writer and historian of American political culture - broadly defined. Born and raised outside of Boston, in a family with a history of labor activism and political campaigning, he grew up obsessed with politics and popular music. Today, he writes, teaches, and speaks about the ways that Americans have experienced politics and practiced their duties as citizens, from grassroots social movements to urban subcultures. In 2022, Foley joined Farm Aid as the organization's first Cultural Impact Director.
Foley is the author or editor of eight books, including the prize-winning Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War; Front Porch Politics: The Forgotten Heyday of American Activism in the 1970s and 1980s; and the 33 1/3 book on punk band Dead Kennedys' political masterpiece, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. He won the R. Serge Denisoff Award from Popular Music and Society for his article on Johnny Cash's Vietnam War politics, and in 2021, he will publish a full political biography of the Man in Black, Citizen Cash: The Political Life and Times of Johnny Cash, with Basic Books.
Foley has served as historical advisor on a number of award-winning films and television shows, including Mad Men, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Boston Sunday Globe, Salon, and The Daily Beast, among other news and public affairs outlets.
He is Professor of American History at Université Grenoble Alpes in France.