I am K-State’s economic historian. But I also consider myself a cultural historian — of the ways in which economic ideas work their way through society and are used and misused by politicians in the formation of public policy. Hence I have researched such diverse topics as the role that “natural monopoly” theory played in the rise of the regulation of the telephone industry in the nineteenth century (it’s more interesting than it sounds!), the development of the inheritance tax, the history of income inequality across the industrialized nations, and the mortgage crisis of the 1930s. My book manuscript under contract examines the debates and policy outcomes surrounding the perceived economic and environmental consequences of the fantastic growth of population in the United States. Here at K-State I teach classes in American Political Development (a fancy term for political history), economic history, and a range of classes in modern U.S. history. When I am not being an historian, I enjoy hiking, running, golf, and skiing, both downhill and cross country (I am one of the 600 Americans who enjoys watching the Cross Country Skiing World Cup races on universalsports.com) .... and the hopeless pursuit of the clutter-free life. I am also waiting for an MLB salary cap to save my Baltimore Orioles.

Select Publications

Manuscript in Progress: The State and the Stork: The Population Debate and Policymaking in United States History, under contract with the University of Chicago Press.

Manuscript in Progress: Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell: The Contract Clause and the Great Depression, with John Fliter

“Kick the Population Commission in the Ass: Richard Nixon, the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future, and the Defusing of the Population Bomb,” forthcoming in the Journal of Policy History, January 2010.

"The Original Housing Crisis: Suburbanization, Segregation, and the State in Postwar America," Reviews in American History 36 (June 2008): 259-69

“Historical Income Inequality in Seven Nations: A Statistical Appendix,” in Social Contracts under Stress: The Middle Classes of the United States, Europe, and Japan at the Turn of the Century, ed. Olivier Zunz, Leonard Schoppa, and Nobuhiro Hiwatari (New York: Russell Sage, 2002).

“Igniting Memory: Commemoration of the 1942 Bombing of Southern Oregon, 1962–1998,” The Public Historian 21 (Spring 1999): 65–83.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate:
HIST 100: Introduction to History
HIST 252: The U.S. Since 1877 (the "Survey")
HIST 533: The Economic History of Modern America
HIST 533: The U.S. Since 1945
HIST 533: America in Depression and War (U.S. 1929-1945)
HIST 586: The Advanced Seminar in History

Graduate:
HIST/POLC 815: Research Methods in Security Studies
HIST 909: The Twentieth-Century United States
HIST 928: The Eisenhower Seminar
HIST 984: American Political Development