Voting begins June 1 and extends until July 15. Watch your email for your personalized link to the ballot or find the link on historians.org/myaha. If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact ltownsend@historians.org.
President
The president-elect stands unopposed for election to president. The current president is Ben Vinson III, Howard Univ. (president; African diaspora, colonial Mexico).
Suzanne Marchand
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (Boyd Professor; European intellectual, history of humanities/material culture/arts, Germany and Austria 1700–1945)
Candidate Statement
At this time of extreme threats to the freedom of teaching and scholarship, perhaps my best qualifications for leadership are the breadth and depth of my commitment to the free and impartial pursuit of history of all kinds. I was trained as a modern historian, but I write mostly about the many afterlives of the ancient world. I have co-authored two textbooks (world, then European), and written a business history of the European porcelain industry. I am completing a book on Herodotus’ modern readers, which shows how fierce battles over the trustworthiness of “the father of history” have shaped modern scholarly practices and views of East/West relations—but never ended in universal agreement. And that is a good thing: scholarly progress depends on debate! I have studied or taught at universities in four regions, at two private institutions and two flagship state universities (Berkeley, Chicago, Princeton, LSU). I have served as an AHA Council member and as president of the German Studies Association. My courses treat urban, economic, religious, military, and cultural affairs. I never stop learning from museum curators and former students who are K–12 teachers, and from colleagues in classics, world history, and the history of science. The AHA’s priority today must be to defend the free practice of historical teaching and research, and the academic and civil freedoms of our students and colleagues. But I also champion our renewed engagement with premodern, religious, military, and economic histories. The larger the tent, the more exciting the conversations inside.
Today we face an unprecedented assault on the freedom of historical teaching and research. The AHA must do everything in its power and remit to defend those freedoms. At the same time, we must continue our work on career diversity, on K–12 state history/social studies standards, on improving introductory course teaching, and on AI challenges. Critical to our future success is also the cultivation of historical curiosity and the appreciation for thinking historically in the public sphere. We cannot be afraid to advertise the wonder and wisdom that come hand in hand with the study of history. The AHA Council and its excellent staff are already dedicated to these missions. What I can add is the willingness to commit as much time, experience, and optimism as I can muster to sustain and strengthen one of the nation’s most respected professional associations.
President-elect
The president-elect serves a one-year term. At the end of the term, he or she stands unopposed for election for president. The current president-elect is Suzanne Marchand, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge (Boyd Professor; European intellectual, history of humanities/material culture/arts, Germany and Austria).
Lonnie Bunch III
Smithsonian Institution (secretary; US, museums, African American history, American presidency/sport/film)
Candidate Statement
There has rarely been a time when the need to protect the integrity of historical research and to champion the public’s need to understand the import and the impact of history has been greater. In this current climate shaped by executive orders that challenge the legitimacy of historical expertise, call into question the scholarly advances of the last half century, undervalue the nuances, complexities, and diversity of the American past, and seek to restore “Truth and Sanity to American history” by erasing much of that history, the AHA has an important role to play. I am quite proud of how the AHA has worked collaboratively to protect key governmental cultural entities such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The AHA has been a source of reason, measured confrontation and a bulwark to combat the erasure of history. One of the challenges the AHA faces is the need to develop a more strategic approach to the whirlwind of actions that seek to reshape the public’s understanding of the past. An approach that both protects historical scholarship and strives to make that research accessible and useable for a broad, public audience.
As a scholar my work—whether exploring the impact of the African American presence in California, or the evolution of the American presidency, or the intersection of race and sport—has always been shaped by a desire to ensure that historical scholarship has an impact beyond the academy. Whether as a curator at the National Museum of American History, as the president of the Chicago Historical Society, as the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and now as the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, I have always believed that historical scholarship is also a useful reservoir for the public to dip into for clarity, context, understanding and hope. As someone who has created institutions that were shaped by scholarship, strategic political alliances, and supported by a diverse array of funding sources, I hope to bring that experience to bear to help the AHA as it supports the field of history and aids the public in having access to a useful and useable history that is ripe with scholarship, complexity, and meaning.
George J. Sánchez
University of Southern California (professor and chair, American Studies & Ethnicity; Chicana/o immigration, American West)
Candidate Statement
The AHA has never been more important in defending the ongoing work of historians nor in protecting the future of the historical profession. I have long served the AHA, chairing its Committee on Minority Historians, writing the first analysis of the production of racial minority scholars by history departments for Perspectives in 2007, and serving as president of its Pacific Coast Branch one decade ago. Moreover, my entire career has centered around developing the next generation of scholars and scholarship, having produced 115 PhD students, while also co-editing the American Crossroads series for the University of California Press, which has produced 70 key monographs in the field. As a scholar in Latinx history, my work has not only been fundamental to the growth of this relatively new field but has also helped center Latinx history as critical to US history, and the wider literature of the past. Always at the intersections of several subfields, my research has paid particular attention to how global migration affects the unfolding of history in the United States and Latin America. Since graduate school, I have been committed to bringing historical study to the widest possible public, be that in working diligently with K–12 teachers or launching public exhibitions of my work on Los Angeles with local neighborhood organizations.
With unprecedented attacks on historical truth and public engagement in our own era, the AHA plays a critical role in speaking truth to power, defending the important research and inquiry that defines the best work in the field in museums, archives, the classroom, and scholarly books and articles. We cannot shy away from our role as trained historians to explore all aspects of the past, and communicating that research in all public forums, even when it is likely to upset some listeners. Having served as president of three other scholarly organizations, I believe the AHA president must ensure that all voices are heard within the organization. This is especially true now as we come under attack for revealing parts of the past that challenge our accepted historical wisdom, crafted at a time when not all were allowed to speak, write and debate. As a first-generation college student myself, I know my own immigrant parents would have expected that I speak loudly and passionately for the field of history; I am positive that I will not disappoint them.
By petition: Annelise Orleck
Dartmouth College (professor; 20th-century US politics, labor, immigration, women, social movements, race and migration)
Candidate Statement
We who research, write and teach history face an existential crisis. A capricious federal administration has frozen billions in funds vital to university research. Masked federal agents abduct, detain, and try to deport our students. K–12 teachers, college and university professors, public historians, librarians, archivists, and museum curators are less free every day to teach what our research tells us is true. Thousands of students, staff, and faculty were violently arrested last year for peacefully protesting genocide and scholasticide in Gaza. These harsh realities moved a coalition of AHA affiliates to nominate a slate of candidates committed to addressing these crises. They asked if I would run for president-elect. After much thought, with humility and a searing sense of urgency, I agreed. I did not know at that time who the other nominees were. I have great respect for Lonnie Bunch III and for George Sánchez. My decision to run is not so much an act of opposition as a promise. Whatever the election results, I will work to infuse the AHA with a fighting spirit and to engage and energize our members. My approach to building community among historians will be informed by the life I’ve led—I was a high school history teacher for years before becoming a professor—and the movements I’ve written about. Immigrant labor organizers, welfare rights activists, domestic workers, farm workers, and Walmart workers speak to me now as I try to understand and resist today’s assaults on history. Their movements will continue to inspire and guide me if I am elected.
The responsibilities of the AHA have never been greater or more crucial. At a time when history is being weaponized and politicized, when elected officials and ideologically driven private citizens attempt to dictate and limit what we can research, what we can teach, include in libraries, and say on departmental and institutional web sites, the AHA must continue to vigorously represent and protect the standards of the historical profession. If elected, I will seek to maintain partnerships between professors, K–12 teachers, museum curators, public historians, and archivists and solicit a range of ideas about how best to preserve the integrity of our profession in the face of these assaults. I will work with fellow officers, members and staff to maintain relationships with elected and appointed government officials. And I will look for ways that the AHA can support and protect those in our profession who are most vulnerable at this fraught time in our history.
Professional Division
The AHA Professional Division promotes integrity, fairness, and civility in the practice of history. Returning members are Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan, Council member, Rutgers Univ. (19th-century US, social, public) and Jennifer McNabb, Council member, Univ. of Northern Iowa (social and legal, medieval and early modern Europe).
Vice President
William Deverell
University of Southern California (professor and co-director, Huntington-USC Institute; US West, environment)
Candidate Statement
It is a big honor to be nominated to be vice president of the Professional Division with the AHA. Throughout my long career, I have been continually supported, challenged, and inspired by my fellow historians. These colleagues, including those that I know well and those that I do not, have provided steady inspiration across 40 years of professional life. I feel compelled, especially in these extraordinarily difficult times, to represent the finest aspects of our community and to never deviate from our shared commitment to integrity and the highest ethical standards of our profession. This is one way we can fight back against those who vehemently oppose our institutions, our research, our students, and our career choices.
Karin Wulf
John Carter Brown Library and Brown University (director/librarian and professor; colonial America, women, family and politics)
Candidate Statement
We have long faced challenges to the pursuit of robust professional history. But in kind and scale and however measured—in terms of the staggering loss of academic and public jobs in history, explicit threats to full, inclusive history in curricula, exhibits, and scholarship, and the looming presence of AI—we are in a new era. How will we answer the call? This is, in my view, the central question for the AHA and its Council. In a long career I’ve been lucky to have work as a professor. I’ve led a research and publishing institute and now a rare books library. I’ve been on the faculty at both public and private institutions. I’ve launched collaborative initiatives and have served on boards for global, national, and local nonprofits in history, public humanities, and publishing. In all of these capacities my core commitment is to the critical importance of history across every sector, and to supporting early career researchers. Over the last decade I’ve written for academic and public audiences about all of these issues, and I’m easy to find at the Scholarly Kitchen, Perspectives, Made By History, and in other venues. I’ve mostly spoken and written diagnostically rather than prescriptively about what ails us, but institutions now need to mobilize faster and more intensively than ever the information and other resources that we’ve been developing about and for our discipline. Maybe historians can’t entirely historian our way out of this, but we can more aggressively leverage what we do best.
By petition: Sherene Seikaly
University of California, Santa Barbara (associate professor; modern Middle Eastern capitalism, consumption, and development)
Candidate Statement
I am an associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and I study 19th- and 20th-century Palestine, Egypt, and Sudan. My research and publications bring together political economy, subjectivity formation, medicine, race, and slavery. I direct the Center for Middle East Studies at UCSB and have been a board member of the Middle East Studies Association. In each of these leadership roles, I have supported and uplifted generations of students and scholars. I am an editorial board member of the American Historical Review, editor of Journal of Palestine Studies, co-editor of the Stanford Studies Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures Series, and co-editor of Jadaliyya. The imperatives of academic freedom and free speech have fueled each of these endeavors. I have taken active part in democratizing institutional spaces to speak to a broad range of scholarly needs from the private institution to the community college. I am committed to the AHA’s Professional Division’s mandate to ensure equity for all members. I will work hard to advocate for adjunct, precarious, and international scholars and students in the wake of the heightened assault on higher education.
Council Member
William Kuracina
East Texas A&M University (professor; Indian socialism, Indian nationalist movement)
Candidate Statement
My candidacy means that I will bring nearly a decade of administrative experiences into AHA’s advocacy for our professional practices. As an administrator, I supervised scores of hire and promotions, I mentored promotions, and I oversaw ethical standards; I also asked or answered a multitude of questions about the value or relevance of history, and especially about how historians can best prepare and equip our students for tomorrow’s careers. My experience with the Texas Governor’s Executive Development Program likely positions me to offer insights about navigating a political climate that threatens our research and educational integrity and autonomy. My involvement with the AHA’s pilot program with QA Commons has revealed the need to gear our programs and offerings to the demands of the marketplace: We must convey public-digestible messaging about how we empower our students to cultivate the growth mindsets that can achieve the career needs of their dynamic world.
M. Raisur Rahman
Wake Forest University (associate professor and chair; South Asia, Muslims, local and urban)
Candidate Statement
As a sociocultural and literary historian of modern India, I have been researching and writing about a very basic element of human identity—that of one’s association and belonging with a place. Covering overlooked histories of qasbahs or small towns in colonial north India based on untapped and largely unexplored sources, I have sought to complicate our understanding of South Asian urban and Muslim history. Among my current interests lie a history of Muslim families and communities in the civic life of the city of Bombay, the question of Muslim belonging as driven by self-articulation, and the Muslim middle class in India. I have served various leadership and advocacy roles with the goal of enhancing visibility of the field and promoting professional development and collaboration. If elected, I remain committed to continuing to build alliances and contribute to the impactful role that the AHA must play in the years ahead.
Research Division
The AHA Research Division works to help promote historical scholarship, preserve historical documents and artifacts, ensure equal and open access to information, and foster the dissemination of information about historical records and research. Returning members are William G. Thomas III, vice president, Montana State Univ., Bozeman (American legal, digital scholarship); Jana Lipman, Council member, Tulane Univ. (20th-century US, US foreign relations, US immigration, labor); and Cemil Aydin, Council member, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (global, modern Asia and Middle East).
Council Member
Niko Pfund
Oxford University Press; effective July 1, Yale University Press (academic publisher and president, OUP USA; publishing, scholarship, media)
Candidate Statement
As a publisher and reader of history my entire life, my professional and personal life are inextricably intertwined with the historical profession. The present circumstances and the AHA’s forceful and proactive role in responding to current events and blatant attempts to politicize the practice of history compelled my interest in the role. I hope to serve the Association and the profession and practice of history however asked to do so, the commitments of a full-time job notwithstanding. I hope to bring to the AHA an understanding of the scholarly publishing ecosystem, deep connections in both the academy and the publishing world, and a deep commitment to the nonideological, archivally driven, and evidentiary pursuit of truth such as it can be ascertained.
Nadine Zimmerli
University of Virginia Press (editor in chief; transnational, US and German-speaking central Europe)
Candidate Statement
As a historian of modern Europe with a focus on cosmopolitan migrants, I conducted research in American, British, and German archives and museums. As an acquiring editor for the past two decades, I have worked closely with historians of the Americas, of Europe, and of Africa in publishing their research as academic or trade books. Academic presses are a vital part of the scholarly ecosystem through validating and disseminating historical research in various forms, from the traditional monograph to scholarly editions of primary sources to born-digital projects. As a publishing professional I am committed to safeguarding the integrity of historical research and to thinking through innovative ways in which historians’ critical insights can reach the widest possible audiences. At a time when humanities centers and repositories are under threat, it will be ever more important to preserve access to physical and digital collections of documents and artifacts and to communicate clearly the meaningful contributions historical research makes to civic society.
By petition: Van Gosse
Franklin & Marshall College (professor emeritus; African American struggle for citizenship, Global Cold War politics and culture)
Candidate Statement
I have had a varied career, serving at every rank, from a VAP at three colleges to department chair, and I understand the challenges facing people in all those roles. Post-PhD in the 1990s, I worked both inside academia and outside in several national nonprofits, so I appreciate the issues of career diversity facing younger scholars today. My understanding of scholarship is shaped by 35 years on the Radical History Review’s Editorial Collective, connecting me to a vast range of historical practices and the changing environment of academic publishing. I also co-founded Historians Against the War in 2003 and since 2017 have served as co-chair of its successor, Historians for Peace and Democracy. As councilor for the Research Division, I would focus on making the Association more responsive to all members—K–12 teachers, graduate students, adjunct instructors, tenure-track and tenured professors—and enhancing its democratic functioning.
Teaching Division
The AHA Teaching Division collects and disseminates information about the training of teachers, studies and encourages innovative methods of instruction, and works to foster cooperation among faculty. Returning members are Serena Zabin, vice president, Carleton Coll. (early America, American Revolution), Jennifer Baniewicz, Council member, Amos Alonzo Stagg High School (US, AP US, AP European, Western civilization) and Edward Cohn, Council member, Grinnell Coll. (Soviet Union/Russia/central Europe, policing and surveillance).
Council Member
Kelli Y. Nakamura
Kapi’olani Community College (professor; world, US, Asian American history, Hawai’i)
Candidate Statement
Throughout my career, I have focused on student learning and engagement to promote student success. I also worked independently and collaboratively with my colleagues to develop, revise, and assess curriculum materials and instructional techniques. Additionally, I participate in professional development activities to maintain my expertise in current discipline content and methodologies, as well as to understand the educational needs of my students. As a historian, I continue to present and publish my research as part of my professional development activities while fostering partnerships with various organizations and institutions. Finally, I have actively pursued extramural funding to support educational initiatives and promote additional learning opportunities and resources for students of all ages. Through my participation in the AHA, I hope to share the important contributions and role of community colleges in higher education and learn from my colleagues in other institutions and fields of study.
Amy G. Powers
Waubonsee Community College (professor; benevolent societies in New York City, prostitution regulation)
Candidate Statement
By petition: Karen Miller
La Guardia Community College, CUNY (professor; internal migration programs, settler colonization, long 20th-century US empire in Philippines)
Candidate Statement
I was trained as a US urban historian and have since turned to the scholarship of the US in the world to study American empire and the Philippines. My current project illustrates that settler migration programs, first devised by agents of the American colonial state, not only materially dispossessed Indigenous Filipinos, but established the logics of settler entitlement that have served as an alibi for extractive political economies and their attendant inequalities. I have worked at a community college for 21 years where I teach US and transnational history and run pedagogy seminars for graduate students in the CUNY system. I am also active in the faculty union chapter and have served as its secretary or vice president for over 15 years. I am currently finishing a three-year term on the executive committee of the Organization of American Historians; I believe that democracy must be defended in our professional organizations.
Committee on Committees
The Committee on Committees nominates individuals to fill vacancies on all regular Association committees. Returning members are Julio Capó Jr., Florida International Univ. (20th-century queer Miami, transnational Caribbean-US sexuality); Carol Harrison, Univ. of South Carolina (religion, gender, France 1750–1914); and Linh Vu, Arizona State Univ. (war dead in 20th-century China, virtue and citizenship).
Laura Matthew
Marquette University (associate professor; Central and Latin America, Mesoamerica, Spanish colonial Guatemala)
Candidate Statement
I deeply appreciate the AHA’s big tent, institutional energy, and advocacy work. I would bring to this position a strong interdisciplinary and international network, and a commitment to involving a variety of practitioners at the earlier stages of their careers in the crucial conversations of our discipline. I was on the program committees of the AHA in 2020 and the Congreso Centroamericano de Historia in Honduras in 2024; have served on review boards for the NEH, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the British Library, the Universidad de Costa Rica, and the American Academy in Berlin; and have been on the editorial boards of four book series or journals. I am also an active member of the Society for American Archaeology, whose issues often overlap with the AHA’s. I would be very happy for the opportunity to contribute to the important work of this committee.
Laura J. Mitchell
University of California, Irvine (associate professor; colonial South African labor/slavery, African environmental, world)
Candidate Statement
Our world is changing as we watch, whether our gaze is trained on students in our classes, campus institutions, research funding, national politics, or global security. What can historians do with a front row seat to interesting times? One avenue is serving existing institutions. The AHA works through elected officers—who should reflect the diversity of the members. My professional life straddles many categories: I am an Africanist and early modernist; a digital humanist obsessed with archival paper; a micro-historian and world historian; a community activist with national and international organizing experience. I’ve led AHA-affiliated societies as president of FEEGI and the World History Association. I’ve collaborated with a wide range of K–12 teachers locally and nationally. Spearheading the AHA’s Career Diversity initiative at UCI strengthened my connections with historians working beyond the academy. I will bring this capacious perspective to the task of proposing historians to serve the AHA.
Nominating Committee
The Nominating Committee makes nominations for all elective posts in the AHA, oversees the counting of ballots, and reports the results of the election to the membership. Returning members are Hilary Green, Davidson Coll. (Black education in Reconstruction, Civil War memory); Hiromi Mizuno, Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities (cultural history of science in Japan, colonialism, environmental); Amanda Moniz, Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (early America, humanitarianism); Dana Rabin, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Great Britain, race, 18th-century empire); Matthew Restall, Penn State Univ. (colonial Latin America, Maya history); and Anthony Steinhoff, Univ. du Québec à Montréal (modern Germany/France, modern European religion, Wagner/operatic culture in German-speaking Europe, urban).
Slot 1
Ernesto Chavez
University of Texas at El Paso (Dr. and Mrs. W. H. Timmons Professor of Borderlands History and chair; film, sexuality, Latino)
Candidate Statement
I am the Dr. and Mrs. W.H. Timmons Professor of Borderlands History at the University of Texas at El Paso, the leading Hispanic Serving Institution in the nation. My work focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of Latinx peoples, especially those of Mexican origin, in the United States. I believe in the power of history and the work that the American Historical Association does to promote the discipline and those who practice and promote it. As a member of the Nominating Committee, I would prioritize nominating individuals who reflect the diversity—in terms of race, gender, sexuality, region, area of study, and type of institution- of the association’s membership. Only by embracing and valuing the many peoples and voices that make up the association, can we truly advocate for all and continue to produce new and transformative knowledge.
Marc Rodriguez
Portland State University (professor and editor, Pacific Historical Review; Chicano/Mexican American civil rights, legal)
Candidate Statement
I am a historian of US labor, legal, and Latinx history and have been a member of the AHA since 1993. I have taught at a variety of institutions on both coasts (and the Midwest) in my nearly three decades in the profession. In recent years, I played a significant role in the PCB-AHA, the West Coast branch of this organization. As editor of the Pacific Historical Review I served as a member of the branch’s executive committee, and then as an ex officio member of the branch council involved in the planning and execution of the annual conference. As the editor of the Pacific Historical Review I have helped many established, new, and emerging scholars publish innovative work in many fields of history. As a member of the Nominating Committee my priority will be to encourage the greater diversity of those who are nominated to serve so that our organization may better reflect the reality of our world and our profession. I seek to help make the AHA a place where everyone feels that their voice matters and the best scholars and scholarship finds a home.
By petition: Alexander Aviña
Arizona State University (associate professor; Latin America, activism and social movements, immigration)
Candidate Statement
Crossing borders—national, disciplinary, and methodological borders—characterizes my research and teaching as a public-facing historian. My academic training as a historian of Latin America and my personal experience of growing up in the United States with undocumented Mexican migrant parents aid my ongoing efforts to cross and bring together the fields of US and Latin American history. This is an urgent endeavor, as key issues of our time—migration, violent border regimes across the globe, rising authoritarianism, political assaults on higher education—demand historical perspective and insight willing to traverse national and subfield boundaries. I have learned this lesson firsthand in my work as an expert witness and country conditions report author for refugee asylum cases. If elected, I hope to bring these experiences—along with the goal of fostering internal democracy within the AHA—to my work as member of the Nominating Committee.
Slot 2
Jeffrey Ahlman
Smith College (professor and chair; African political and social, global Black intellectual)
Candidate Statement
I am a historian of 20th-century West Africa, with a focus on the social and cultural history of African decolonization and nation-building. Throughout my research and teaching, I have aspired to highlight the innovative ways in which African peoples responded to the rapidly changing and even chaotic world of 20th-century decolonization. As a historian during these past few months, I have found myself reflecting even more on what this period must have been like for the people whose history I study as we as a discipline confront our own increasingly uncertain moment. If elected to serve on the Nominating Committee, I look forward to working with my colleagues to help identify a diverse and committed pool of officers eager to serve, protect, and grow the AHA and the discipline writ large during this period of tumult.
Mariana P. Candido
Emory University (Winship Distinguished Research Professor; West Central Africa, land and property, gender, slavery/slave trade)
Slot 3
Michele Louro
Salem State University (professor; modern South Asia, world, British imperialism)
Candidate Statement
I am a historian of modern South Asia, British imperialism, and international and transnational history. I hold a PhD from Temple University and am currently professor of history at Salem State University. My books include Comrades against Imperialism: Nehru, India, and Interwar Internationalism (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018) and the co-edited volume League against Imperialism: Lives and Afterlives (Leiden Univ. Press, 2020). My latest research includes a transnational history of Agnes Smedley and an edited volume, Women and the Anticolonial Transnational: Beyond Men and Manifestos. In the current political climate, serving the AHA in support of its mission to advocate for our discipline, scholars, and students is both timely and essential. I bring a strong record of leadership in AHA-affiliated societies, including service as president of the Society for Advancing the History of South Asia, treasurer of the World History Association, and president of the New England World History Association.
Prasannan Parthasarathi
Boston College (professor and chair; South Asia, India, economic and social, environmental)
Candidate Statement
I am an economic, social and (now environmental) historian of 18th- and 19th-century South Asia. At the moment, I am finishing a book on environmental change in 19th-century South India and the impact of those changes on agriculture and livelihoods. My previous books have looked at cotton textiles, the colonial impact in South India, and the great divergence. In 2020, I co-curated Indian Ocean Current: Six Artistic Narratives at Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art. In my research and teaching I am committed to recovering forgotten voices and to writing an anti-racist history of the modern world. I serve on the steering committee of Historians for Peace and Democracy. From 2013 to 2016 I served on the editorial board of the American Historical Review. If elected to the Nominating Committee, I will seek to represent all historians to the best of my ability and to be an advocate for democracy and transparency in the governance of the American Historical Association.