Curriculum Vitae
Bradley R. Simpson
11802 Charles Road, Silver Spring, MD 20906 bradley.simpson@uconn.edu
Experience:
Department of History, Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, University of Connecticut
Professor of History and Asian Studies 2013 - present
School of Public and International Affairs, Department of History, Princeton University 2008 – 2013 Assistant Professor of History and Public Affairs
Department of History, University of Maryland-Baltimore County 2005 – 2008 Assistant Professor of U.S. History and Foreign Relations
Department of History, Idaho State University at Pocatello 2003 -2005 Assistant Professor of U.S. History and Foreign Relations
Publications:
Books
The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of post-1941 International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2025).
Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S. – Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford University Press, hardcover April 2008; paperback spring 2010). 376 pp.
-Reviewed by The American Historical Review, Far Eastern Economic Review, The Nation, History News Network, H-Diplo.org, Diplomatic History, Cold War History, Foreign Service Journal, The Journal of Development Studies, Majalah TEMPO.
-Indonesian translation with Gramedia Press, Indonesia’s largest publisher (2010).
Book manuscripts in progress
Indonesia’s New Order, the U.S., and the World Community, 1966-1998 (book manuscript in progress. Under contract with Cornell University Press)
Articles
“Indonesian Transmigration and the Crisis of Development, 1968–1985.” Diplomatic History 45, no. 2 (April 1, 2021): 268–84.
"The Many Meanings of National Self-Determination," Current History, 113:766 (November 2014), 312-317.
“The Biafran War, Secession, and the Limits of Self-Determination,” Special issue of The Journal of Genocide Studies 16:2 (summer, 2014).
“The Act of Killing and the Dilemmas of History,” Introduction to roundtable review of Joshua Oppenheimer film, The Act of Killing for Film Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 2 (Winter 2013), pp. 10-13.
“Self-Determination, Human Rights, and the End of Empire in the 1970s,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, Volume 4, Number 2, Summer 2013, pp. 239-260.
“The United States and the Curious Descent of Self-Determination,” Diplomatic History 36:4 (September, 2012), 675–694.
“Denying the ‘First Right’: The United States, Indonesia, and the Ranking of Human Rights by the Carter Administration, 1976-1980,” International History Review XXXI, 4 (December 2009), 798-826.
“Indonesia’s ‘Accelerated Modernization’ and the global discourse of development,” Diplomatic History 33:3 (June 2009), 467-486.
“’Illegally and Beautifully:’ The United States, the Indonesian Invasion of East Timor and the International Community,” Cold War History, Vol. 5:3 (August 2005), 281-315.
“Solidarity in an Age of Globalization: The International Movement for East Timor and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in Peace and Change: A Journal of Peace Research (July 2004), 453-482.
Book Chapters
“Socialism and Self-Determination: Lenin, International Law, and National Liberation,” in Ned Richardson-Little and Raluca Grosescu, Eds. Socialisms and International Law in the Contemporary World. Oxford University Press, 2024 (30pp).
“An ‘Undigestible Lump’: Timor-Leste and the Politics of Self-Determination.” In Timor-Leste’s Long Road to Independence: Transnational Perspectives, edited by Rui Graça Feijó and Zelia Pereira, 125–42. Transforming Asia. Amsterdam University Press, 2023.
“Mythical Markets and State-Led Development", in David Engerman and Melanie McAlister, Eds., The Cambridge History of America and the World. Cambridge University Press, 2021 (22pp).
“The United States and Indonesia since 1945,” in the Oxford Reference Encyclopedia (ORE) in American History, Oxford University Press, 2019.
“Self-Determination and the end of Empire,” in Thomas Martin and Andrew Johnson, Eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire Oxford University Press, 2018 (22pp).
“The Biafran War, Secession, and the Limits of Self-Determination,” in A. Dirk Moses and Lasse Heerton, Eds. Postcolonial Conflict and the Question of Genocide: The Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970. Routledge, 2017 (24pp).
“A Not So Humanitarian Intervention: The International Community’s Intervention in East Timor in 1999,” in Fabian Klose, ed, The History of Humanitarian Intervention, Cambridge University Press (2015).
“Political Economy,” solicited chapter in Michael Hogan and Frank Costigliola, eds. Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press (2016).
“Bringing the Non-State Back in: Human Rights and Terrorism since 1945,” in Michael Hogan and Frank Costigliola, eds., America in the World: the Historiography of American Foreign Relations since 1945 (Revised Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, 2014).
“Contested Human Rights Discourses in Suharto’s Indonesia, 1968-1980,” in Sam Moyn and Jan Eckel, eds. The Global History of Human Rights in the 1970s (University Pennsylvania Press, 2013 in English and simultaneous German translation).
“Dimensi Internasional Pembunuhan Massa di Indonesia, 1965-1966,” (The International Dimensions of the Mass Killings in Indonesia, 1965-1966) in Bernd Schafer, Ed., Indonesia and the World in 1965/1966 (Goethe Institut and Gramedia: Jakarta, 2012).
“Southeast Asia in the Global Cold War,” solicited chapter in Robert McMahon, ed. The Cold War in the Third World (series editor William Roger Louis, Oxford University Press, 2012).
“The political economy of the 1965-1966 mass killings in Indonesia,” solicited chapter in Douglas Kammen and Katharine McGregor, eds. The Destruction of the Indonesian Communist Party (published jointly by University of Hawaii Press, National University of Singapore Press, KITLV Press, Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2012).
“The United States, Indonesia and the Contested History of Human Rights in the 1970s” in Akira Iriye et al., eds., Human Rights in the Twentieth Century: An International History (Oxford: New York, 2011)
“A Colonial Hot War in Cold War Disguise: The Indonesian Invasion and Occupation of East Timor, 1975-1999,” in Bernd Greiner, ed., Hot Wars in the Cold War (Hamburg: Hamburg Institute for Social Research, 2006), 23pp.
Entry on “Indonesia, American Relations With” for Dictionary of American History Dynamic Reference (New York: Thomson Gale, 2008).
Entries on “Suharto,” “Mohammed Hatta,” “Abdul Harris Nasution,” “the Indonesia Crisis of 1965,” and “the PRRI-Permesta Rebellion” in James Matray, Ed., Encyclopedia of U.S-East Asian Relations, 1784-2001 (Greenwood Press, 2002).
Other Publications:
“U.S. sought to preserve close ties to Indonesian military as it terrorized East Timor in runup to 1999 independence referendum,” National Security Archive Briefing Book #682, August 28, 2019.
“US Promoted Close Ties to Indonesian Military as Suharto’s Rule Came to an End in Spring 1998,” National Security Archive Briefing Book #633 July 24, 2018.
“U.S. Embassy Tracked Indonesia Mass Murder 1965,” National Security Archive Briefing Book #607, October 17, 2017.
“A Century of Self-Determination,” Current History (November 2014)
“Self-determination in the age of Putin,” March 21, 2014 commentary posted at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/21/self_determination_in_the_age_of_putin_crimea_referendum
“Its Our Act of Killing, Too,” March 1, 2014 Commentary posted at www.theNation.com
“The Skeletons in Denis Blair’s Closet,” December 26, 2008, commentary posted at www.Counterpunch.org.
“Suharto’s Deadly Legacy – and Ours,” Op-Ed distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service and the Progressive Media Project, January 29, 2008.
“Suharto: A Declassified Documentary Obituary,” A National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book, January 2008 (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/Indonesia).
“A Quarter Century of U.S. Support for Occupation,” A National Security Archive Briefing Book, November 2005 (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/Indonesia).
Op-Ed, “Bush’s Retreat on Indonesian Human Rights,” Jakarta Post, 28 March 2005.
“U.S. Policy Toward Indonesia, West Papua, and the 1969 ‘Act of Free Choice,’” A National Security Archive Briefing Book, July 2004 (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/Indonesia).
Op-Ed, “A Civil Society in East Timor,” Washington Times, 28 September 1998.
Selected Book Reviews:
Paul Adler, No Globalization Without Representation: U.S. Activists and World Inequality. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press (2022). Diplomatic History 47, no. 5 (November 1, 2023): 880–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/dh/dhad053.
H-Diplo Roundtable Review of Chien-Wen Kung, Diasporic Cold Warriors: Nationalist China, Anticommunism, and the Philippine Chinese, 1930s-1970s. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2022. https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/discussions/12179180/h-diplo-roundtable-xxiv-19-kung%C2%A0diasporic-cold-warriors
Taomo Zhou, Migration in the Time of Revolution: China, Indonesia, and the Cold War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. H-Diplo.
Adom Getachew. Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. (Diplomatic History, Volume 45, Issue 4, September 2021, Pages 823–826, https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/10.1093/dh/dhab027.
David Webster. Challenge the Strong Wind: Canada and East Timor, 1975-99. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2020 (https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/reviews/7457304/simpson-webster-challenge-strong-wind-canada-and-east-timor-1975-99)
Ang Cheng Guan. Southeast Asia’s Cold War: An Interpretive History. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018. H-Diplo Roundtable. http://www.tiny.cc/Roundtable-XX-39
William Michael Schmidli, The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere: Human Rights and U.S. Cold War Policy Toward Argentina (Ithaca, 2013), for www.h-net.org/-diplo/ .
Paul Chamberlain, The Global Offensive: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Order (Oxford, 2012) for www.h-net.org/-diplo/ .
Max Paul Friedman, Rethinking Anti-Americanism: The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations (Diplomatic History, Vol. 39, No. 3 (June 2015), pp. 582-585), https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.lib.uconn.edu/stable/26376684?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Patrick Barron, Rachel Diprose, and Michael Woolcock, Contesting Development: Participatory Projects and Local Conflict Dynamics in Indonesia (Yale University Press: New Haven, 2011) for Humanity 5.2 (2014)
Nick Cullather, The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia (Harvard, 2010), Journal of American Studies / Volume 46 / Special Issue 02 / May 2012, pp 520-522.
James Peck, Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights (Metropolitan, 2011), Critical Asian Studies 44:2 (2012), 329–338.
Introduction to H-Diplo Roundtable Review of Nick Cullather, The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia (Harvard, 2010) http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XIII-5.pdf (October 2011)
David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and Construction of an American World Order (Princeton, 2009), (Reviews in American History 01/2012; 40(1):159-165).
Quataert, Jean H. Advocating Dignity: Human Rights Mobilizations in Global Politics. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), International History Review, (June 2011).
Anne Foster, Projections of Power: The United States and Europe in Colonial Southeast Asia, 1919–1941 (Duke, 2010) for www.h-net.org/-diplo/ (April 2011).
Scott Kaufman, Plans Unraveled: The Foreign Policy of the Carter Administration (DeKalb, 2008) Diplomatic History 35:1, 171–174, January 2011.
David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and Construction of an American World Order (Princeton, 2009) for www.h-net.org/-diplo/, July, 2010.
William F. Schulz, ed., The Future of Human Rights: U.S. Policy for a New Era (Philadelphia, 2008), for www.h-net.org/~hrights, 2009
Michael S. Grow, U.S. Presidents and Latin American Interventions: Pursuing Regime Change in the Cold War (Lawrence, 2008) for Journal of Interdisciplinary History, (2009).
Ragna Boden, "Cold War Economics: Soviet Aid to Indonesia,"Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Summer 2008), for http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/ (September 2008).
Greg Brazinsky, Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (Chapel Hill, 2007) for http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/(August 2008).
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Vol. XX, Southeast Asia, 1969-1972, Diplomatic History (Diplomatic History, April 2008).
Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War (Boston, 2003), Edited by David C. Engerman, Nils Gilman, Mark H. Haefele, and Michael E. Latham, International History Review, 26:2(June 2004).
Jeremy Suri, Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of Détente (Cambridge, MA, 2003), Published by H-Net and H-Peace@h-net.msu.edu (September 2003).
John Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969: The Anatomy of a Betrayal (Routledge, 2002); Denise Leith, The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia (Hawaii, 2003); and C.L.M. Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonization and Indonesia, 1945-1962 (Hawaii, 2003), Critical Asian Studies, 35:3 (September 2003).
Awards, Fellowships, Grants:
Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars Public Policy and History Fellow 2018-2019
UConn Humanities Institute Residential Fellowship 2015-2016
Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars 2013
Research and Travel Grant, Roosevelt Institute and Library 2012
Research and Travel Grant, Harry S. Truman Library 2012
Research and Travel Grant, Gerald Ford Library 2012
University Committee on Research Grant, Princeton University 2012
Bernath Lecture Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations 2011-2012
Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant, Partner Investigator, “’Making Torture Unthinkable’: The Global Campaign against Torture, 1967-1984,” 2011-2014
Exploratory Seminar Grant, Program on International and Interregional Studies (PIIRS) for
International Workshop on the History of Nonalignment 2011
General Support Grant, MacArthur Foundation (provided to the 2010-2013
National Security Archive to fund the Indonesia Documentation
Project and other documentation projects), $36,000
University Committee on Research Grant, Princeton University 2010
Visiting Scholar, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne July-August 2010
Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Indonesia 2009-2010
Research and Travel Grant, Rockefeller Center Archives 2009
University Committee on Research Grant, Princeton University 2008
Research Fellow, National Security Archive 2003-present
Research and Travel Grant, Rockefeller Center Archives 2004
Idaho State University Humanities and Social Science Research Council 2003
Grant for Indonesia/East Timor Documentation Project, $16,000
Grant from J.M. Kaplan Foundation for Indonesia/East Timor 2002
Documentation Project, $25,000
Research and travel grant, Gerald Ford Presidential Library 2002
Northwestern University Dissertation Year Fellowship 2001
Kennedy research grant, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library 1999
Travel and research grant, Center for International and 1998
Comparative Studies, Northwestern University
Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship to the South 1998
East Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) at the University of Oregon
Travel and research grant, History Department, Northwestern University 1997
Travel and research grant, Center for International and Comparative Studies, 1996
Northwestern University
University Fellowship, Northwestern University 1995-2000
Recipient of the Jules David Medal for Outstanding History Thesis, 1994
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, “United Fruit Company,
The Mass Media, and Perceptions of Guatemala, 1947-1954”
Selected Conference and workshop Presentations:
“The Small State Crisis and Self-Determination,” Paper presented at conference Global Histories of International Thought and Geopolitical Concepts, University of Groningen, May 2024.
“Indonesia and the NIEO,” Paper presented at conference “The New International Economic Order. Lessons and Legacies 50 Years Later,” Ca’ Foscari University, Venice, Italy, May 2024.
“Self-Determination in the Global North,” Paper presented at Yale conference, Reckoning with Empire: The Right to Self-Determination in Historical View, November 12-13, 2021.
“East Timor’s Self-determination struggle and the Cold War,” paper presented at conference The Self-Determination of Timor-Leste: Resistance, Diplomacy, Solidarity, Lisbon March 15-19, 2021.
“The Transnational politics of Indonesian Transmigration,” Paper presented at University of Cologne conference Human Rights and Technological Change, Cologne, September 19-20, 2019.
“Indonesian Transmigration and the Crisis of Development,” Roundtable on The History of US-Southeast Asian Relations, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), August 1-2, 2019.
“The First Right: Debating the Meaning and Scope of the ‘Right’ to Political and Economic Self-determination at the United Nations, 1945-1960,” paper presented at Leiden University Conference, Challenging the Liberal World Order: The History of the Global South, Decolonization and the United Nations, 1955-2000. Leiden University, 8-9 May 2018.
“Intellectual afterlives of the Biafra Secession Crisis,” Paper presented at "Remembering Biafra" conference, George Washington University, April 20-21, 2017.
“Does Self-determination have a history? Economic Sovereignty in historical perspective,” paper presented at conference “Does Human Rights Have a History,” University of Chicago, April 8-9, 2015.
“Economic Self-determination, Sovereignty, and International History,” Workshop presentation at Lone Star National Security Forum, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, March 21-23, 2014.
Roundtable organizer and commentator, “the Problem of Sovereignty and American Foreign Relations,” annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), Arlington, Virginia, June 2013.
“Human Rights in Recent History: Local, National, and Transnational Perspectives,” Commenter on panel at 2013 American Historical Association meeting, New Orleans, January 3-6, 2013.
“Realpolitik Praxis in Humanitarian Garb: The International Community’s Intervention in East Timor in 1999,” presentation at Workshop on “The Emergence of Humanitarian Intervention: Concepts and Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” at the Annual Meeting of the Arbeitskreis Historische Friedensforschung, Munich, October 21-22, 2012.
“What’s in a name? Mass Violence, human rights crimes and the Question of Genocide in Indonesia and East Timor,” Presentation at National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar on "Genocide and Human Rights: A Fraught Relationship?" CUNY Graduate Center, September 7, 2012.
“Normalizing Suharto’s Indonesia: Development, Tourism, and Crafts in Bali,” presentation at the 2012 annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, June 23-25, 2012 Hartford, CT.
“Multinational Corporations and Human Rights: The New International Economic Order and the Third World challenge to MNCs in the 1970s,” Presentation at annual meeting of Organization of American Historians, Milwaukee, April 19-22, 2012.
“The Contested politics of Human Rights in Suharto’s Indonesia,” University of California at Davis Human Rights Institute, Colloquium on “Contested Histories of Human Rights,” March 9, 2012.
“The Fracturing of Development Theory and the Rise of Human Rights in the 1970s,” Workshop on Development and Its Evangelists in the Cold War, Columbia University, February 17, 2012.
“Self-determination and Decolonization: A Tangled History,” Presentation at annual meeting of the American Historical Association, Chicago, January 6-8, 2012.
“Historical Documentation and Transitional Justice,” presentation at International Workshop, “Addressing the Legacies of Human Rights Abuse and Mass Violence: Critical Perspectives on ‘Transitional Justice’ from Indonesia and East Timor,” UCLA, April 15-16, 2011.
“Looking Beyond the Cold War: Re-conceiving the Post-1945 Era in International and Transnational History,” Commentator, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Houston, TX, March 2011.
The Nonaligned Movement and the Mediterranean,” Commentator, International Workshop on the Global Cold War in the Mediterranean Area, February 11–12, 2011, Columbia University
“The United States and the Rise of Suharto’s New Order,” presentation at Goethe-Institut international conference on the 1965 Killings in Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia, January, 2011.
“Self-Determination, the End of Empire and the Fragmented Discourse of Human Rights in the 1970s,” presentation at University of Freiburg workshop on the history of human rights in the 1970s, Freiburg, Germany, June 2010.
“The Cold War in Southeast Asia,” presentation at workshop on the Cold War in the Third World, Mershon Center, Ohio State University, March 2010.
“The Political Economy of Mass Murder: The 1965-1966 Killings in Indonesia and the Cold War,” presentation at National University of Singapore workshop on the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-1966, Singapore, June 2009.
“Globalizing Foreign Policy: The Rise of Transnational Politics,” Panel Chair and Commentator, at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), Reston, Virginia, June 2009.
“Looking South: Moving Between Regions in U.S.-Third World Relations,” Roundtable commentary at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), Reston, Virginia, June 2009.
”The First Right: The US, Indonesia and the emergence of transnational human rights norms in the 1970s,” presentation at Princeton International Faculty Colloquium, Woodrow Wilson School, May, 11, 2009.
“Military Modernization and Development Dictators in the Global Cold War,” paper presentation at Columbia workshop on the social sciences and the Cold War, Columbia University, April 10, 2009.
"Unwarranted and Mischievous Interference": The Carter Administration, Indonesia and the transnational human rights politics of the 1970s," paper presented at “Human Rights in History” workshop, International History Workshop, Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy, Temple University,” Philadelphia, December 12-14, 2008.
“Indonesian Modernization Discourses,” paper presented at German Historical Institute workshop on Modernization and the Global Cold War, Washington, D.C. April 2008.
“Teaching History with a Peace Perspective: Peace and Solidarity in the Classroom,” Panel Discussion at the annual meeting of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, September 2007.
Organizer of Panel, “Diverse Doctrines: The Nixon Doctrine from Asia to Latin America,” and presenter, “Embracing the New Order: The Nixon Administration and Indonesia 1969-1974,” at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), Reston, Virginia, June 2007.
"Development Dictators: Military Modernization and U.S. Indonesian Relations, 1958-1963," presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Military Historians (SMH), Frederick, Maryland, April 2007.
“’Unwarranted and Mischievous Interference:’ The Carter Administration, Human Rights, and the Indonesian Occupation of East Timor,” Presentation at the annual meeting of the Canadian Asian Studies Association (CASA) Meeting, Montreal, Canada, October 2006.
Organizer of panel, “Writing the U.S. into the global history of human rights,” and presenter “’Human Rights Tail Wagging the Foreign Policy Dog’? The Carter Administration, Human Rights, and the Indonesian Occupation of East Timor,” at the meeting of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), Seattle, Washington, March 2005.
“The Historian as Activist (and vice versa): Researching and Writing a ‘Relevant’ History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” Presentation at Meeting of the Peace History Society, Rock Hill, SC, November 3-5, 2005.
“’Unwarranted and Mischievous Interference:’ The Human Rights Movement, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Indonesian Invasion of East Timor,” presentation at the meeting of the Social Science History Association (SSHA), Chicago, Illinois, November 2004.
“Imagining Indonesian Development: U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1954-1963,” presentation at the meeting of the Organization of American Historians/South (OAH), Atlanta, Georgia, July 2004.
“Embracing the New Order: The Johnson Administration and Indonesian Authoritarianism, 1965-1968,” presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), University of Texas at Austin, June 2004.
“Modernizing Indonesia? Military Modernization, Democracy, and U.S. – Indonesian Relations, 1961-1968,” presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), George Washington University, June 2003.
“Solidarity in the Age of Globalization: East Timor and U.S. Foreign Policy,” presentation at the New School for Social Research conference “History Matters: Social Movements Past, Present, and Future,” New York, May, 2003.
“Transnational Peace Activism: The International Movement for East Timor and U.S. Foreign Policy,” presentation at the Peace History Society Conference at Central Michigan University, April 2003.
“U.S. Policy Toward Indonesia, West Papua, and the 1969 ‘Act of Free Choice,’” Presentation at the Third International Conference on West Papua, London, October 2002.
“Blueprint for Modernization: The Kennedy Administration’s Strategy for Indonesia, 1961-1963,” presentation at the Graduate Student Cold War Conference at George Washington University, summer 2002.
Selected Invited Speaking Events:
“Self-Determination and International Order,” University of Coimbra, Portugal, March 2024.
“Self-Determination in Very Small Places,” Harvard International and Global History Seminar, February 2, 2021.
“The Atlantic Charter and the Wartime History of Self-Determination,” Ohio University International History Seminar, September, 2018.
“The Cold War and the Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966,” presentation at Michigan State University, March 2018.
“Self-Determination and the history of Decolonization,” Presentation at Brown University, April 2018.
“The Atlantic
“Self-Determination and International History,” presentation at Yale University, December 8, 2016.
“The Long Reach of Genocide,” Strassler Center for Genocide and Holocaust Research, Clark University, March 4, 2016.
“Self-Determination and International History,” presentation at Temple University, January 22, 2016.
“Self-Determination and Human Rights during the Cold War,” Presentation at Georgetown University, November 14, 2014.
“Economic Self-determination and Resource Sovereignty in historical perspective,” Presentation at Cornell University, October 15, 2014.
“Economic Self-determination, Sovereignty, and International History,” Harvard University Global and International History Workshop, February 12, 2014
“Economic Self-determination, Sovereignty, and International History,” Yale University International History Workshop, February 19, 2014
“Self-determination, human rights and US Foreign Policy,” Presentation for Phi Beta Kappa, Fordham University, November 20, 2014.
“Indonesia and the Contested History of Human Rights,” Presentation at UC Berkeley, October 8, 2013.
“Self-Determination and International History,” Presentation at Stanford University, October 9, 2013.
“Self-Determination and International History,” Presentation at Duke University, April 3, 2013.
The United States and the Tangled History of Human Rights,” presentation at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, February 28, 2013.
“The Cold War History of Self-Determination,” presentation at Northwestern University, November 8, 2012.
“The United States and the Curious Descent of Self-Determination,” Bernath Lecture for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, given at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Milwaukee, April 19-22, 2012.
“Self-Determination and International History,” presentation at the University of Chicago, March 22, 2012.
“The Cold War History of Self-Determination,” University of California at Santa Barbara, Center for Cold War Studies, February 23, 2012.
“Indonesia and the Contested History of Human Rights,” Yale University Indonesia Forum and Center for Southeast Asian Studies, February 17, 2012.
“Self-Determination and International History,” “Three Worlds or One? Globalization and the History of the Third World,” invited lectures, Center for International Relations,
School of History and the Social Sciences, Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro Brazil, November 1-2, 2011.
“The Cold War History of Self-Determination,” New York University Cold War Workshop, September 22, 2011.
“The First Right? Self-determination and International History,” Presentation at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, May 7, 2011.
“The United States and the Human Rights Revolution,” Presentation at Wright State University, Dayton, OH, May 6, 2011.
“The First Right? Self-determination and International History,” Presentation at the College of William and Mary, April 5, 2011.
"Too Many Balinese": Controlling Population, Rice and Migration during Suharto’s New Order,” Presentation at William Paterson University/Columbia University Political History Seminar, March 8, 2011.
“Self-Determination, the End of Empire and the Fragmented Discourse of Human Rights in the 1970s,” presentation at Center for International History, Columbia University, February 18, 2011.
“Self-Determination, the End of Empire and the Fragmented Discourse of Human Rights in the 1970s,” presentation at University of Chicago Human Rights Workshop, November 16, 2010.
“Self-Determination, the End of Empire and the Fragmented Discourse of Human Rights in the 1970s,” presentation at Annenberg Seminar in History, University of Pennsylvania, October 5, 2010.
“Suharto’s New Order as an International Project,” Indonesia Forum Annual Lecture, University of Melbourne, August 4, 2010.
“Self-Determination, the End of Empire and the Fragmented Discourse of Human Rights in the 1970s,” lecture at the Australian National University, Canberra, June 24, 2010.
“Documenting US-Indonesian Relations During Suharto’s New Order,” Indonesian Institute for the Social Sciences (LIPPI), Jakarta, Indonesia, June 15, 2010.
“The United States and the Rise of Suharto’s New Order,” lecture at the University of Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta, Indonesia May 29, 2010
“The United States and East Timor, From Occupation to Independence,” lecture at the University of Timor Leste’, Dili, Timor Leste’, April 19, 2010.
“The United States and the Shifting Global System of Power,” Indonesian Defense University International Seminar, “Indonesia Towards 2025: Geopolitical and Security Challenges,” Jakarta, Indonesia March, 2010.
Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S. – Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968, book talk at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, November 2008
“The Economics of Violence: The United States and Economic Development in Suharto’s Indonesia,” Vassar College, October 2008.
Education:
Ph.D., Northwestern University 2003
Dissertation: “Modernizing Indonesia: U.S. –Indonesian Relations, 1961-1967”
Major Field: American History; Minor Field: International Politics
Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 1992-1994
B.S., Magna cum Laude, International Relations
Experience:
The National Security Archive 2002-present
Research Fellow, founder and director of a project to document U.S. - Indonesian relations from 1965-present and U.S. policy toward East Timor from 1975 to 1999. This project (available for viewing at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/indonesia/) is declassifying thousands of formerly secret documents using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and making them available to journalists, NGOs, allied scholars and the wider public. From 2002 to 2005 served as a consultant to East Timor’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). In spring 2004 the documentation project provided more than 4,500 pages of formerly secret U.S. documents to the CAVR which used in preparing its final report, released in January 2006. The activities of the project have received worldwide news coverage, and have been utilized by journalists and scholars in a range of research.
Languages:
Indonesian: reading, speaking and writing
German: reading
Professional Associations:
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
American Historical Association
Organization of American Historians
Association of Asian Studies
Professional Service:
Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, University of Connecticut, 2022-present.
Associate Director, Asian and Asian American Studies Program, University of Connecticut, 2015-2017.
Editorial Board Member, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development
Associate Editor, World Politics (Cambridge University Press), 2009-2013
Mentor, Fulbright Indonesia Program, 2009-present
Program Chair, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual Meeting, Washington DC, June 2011
Member, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Graduate Grant Committee, 2009-present
Member, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Membership Committee, 2009-present
Editor, “The US, South Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, 1961-1991,” in Robert Beisner, Ed.
American Foreign Relations Since 1600: A Guide to the Literature (ABC-CLIO), 2004-present.
Manuscript reviewer for Oxford University Press, Modern Asian Studies, Human Rights Review, Asian Affairs: An American Review, World Politics, International Affairs, Critical Asian Studies, International Studies Review, Pacific Affairs, Pacific Historical Review, Asian Survey, Diplomatic History, Journal of Contemporary History, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development, Vanderbilt University Press, Genocide Studies and Prevention.
Book Review Co-Editor for H-Peace, discussion list for the Peace History Society (2005-2007)
Board Member, Peace History Society, 2005-2008
Faculty Advisor, Idaho State University International Affairs Society and Frank Church
International Affairs Symposium, 2003-2005