History Department News and Research

In the wake of President Trump's recent tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color, Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science, assesses that coded racial language began to be used as a political strategy under President Richard Nixon.

"Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón declared the start of the Drug War in 2006, both the U.S. and Mexico’s security forces have aggressively pursued what is referred to as the kingpin strategy: they go after the 'head’ with the intent of weakening the ‘body,’" says Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

"The question we should all ask is whether President Donald Trump’s threat of imposing scaled tariffs on Mexico will go the way he plans—including shutting down the border," says Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

"The fallout of such tariffs could be catastrophic to Mexico's economy, thereby worsening the migration north," says Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

Melanie Hicken and her CNN reporting partner detail a massive, decades-long scam that cost many their life savings. It’s all described in the reporters’ new book.

Gladys McCormick, the Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations at the Maxwell School, was published in The Hill. She writes about the interpolation by the Trump administration of southern border refugees as Mexican, whereas these immigrants are also fleeing Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador as well.

Tessa Murphy, assistant professor of history, has been awarded a long-term fellowship from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Murphy’s current book project, "The Creole Archipelago," traces British and French attempts to assimilate or remake colonial societies that evolved beyond the boundaries of European empire in the early modern Caribbean.

Gladys McCormick, Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations, explains (former) Mexican President Felipe Calderón's strategy to crack down on drug trafficking organizations was to eliminate drug kingpins. But rather than eliminating the cartels, the capture and death of cartel leaders have led to their members creating smaller organizations.

"The U.S. government’s ties to humanitarian aid to Venezuela are deeply suspect and it’s common knowledge that it’s intended to fast track the military’s defection of current President Nicolás Maduro," writes Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations. "If it truly is to be humanitarian aid, the Trump administration needs to decouple it from its aggressive, militaristic agenda," she adds.