Brian VanDeMark grew up in Houston. He attended college at the University of Texas, Austin (Plan II), received his Ph.D. from UCLA, and now lives in La Jolla, California.. He taught history at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis for 35 years until his retirement in 2025. He is now professor of history emeritus at Annapolis. The author of several books on American history, he co-authored Robert McNamara's #1 best-selling Vietnam memoir, In Retrospect, which became the basis of Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning documentary film, "The Fog of War." His latest book is Kent State: An American Tragedy, published by W.W. Norton in 2024.