Thomas Field

Biography

Dr. Thomas Field (PhD, London School of Economics) is author of From Development to Dictatorship (Cornell University Press, 2014), which won the McGann Prize from the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies. For his research on development, labor and empire in the contemporary Global South, Field has received the 2021 Cherny Article Prize, from the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association and SHAFR's 2012 Bernath Article Prize. Most recently, Field co-edited Latin America and the Global Cold War (UNC Press, 2020). He is current project, on the local and global origins of Ernesto Guevara's 1967 uprising in Bolivia, is currently under review for publication.

Education

• Ph.D. - Doctor of Philosophy in International History, London School of Economics and Political Science
• M.A. - Master of Arts in American Foreign Policy, Johns Hopkins University

Courses Taught

US History, World History, International Studies, International Relations, US Foreign Policy, Inter-American Relations, Current Issues in America

Publications

Books

The Bolivia Project: Washington, Havana, and the Origins of the Che Guevara Rebellion, currently under review.

From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014.  Translated into Spanish as Minas, balas y gringos: Bolivia y la Alianza para el Progreso en la Era de Kennedy. La Paz, Bolivia: Centro de Investigación Social - Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional, 2016.

Edited Volumes

Latin America and the Global Cold War, co-edited with Vanni Pettinà and Stella Krepp. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

Journal Articles

"Union Busting as Development: Transnationalism, Empire, and Kennedy’s Secret Labour Programme for Bolivia." Journal of Latin American Studies, 52/1: 27-51, 2020.

"Transnationalism Meets Empire: The AFL-CIO, Development, and the Private Origins of Kennedy’s Latin American Labor Program." Diplomatic History, 42/2: 305-334, 2018.

"Ideology as Strategy: Military-led Modernization and the Origins of the Alliance for Progress in Bolivia." Diplomatic History, 36/1: 147-183, 2012.

Book Chapters

"The Limits of Superpower: US Developmentalists and the Local Origins of Bolivia's 1964 Coup."  In Coups d'Ëtat in Cold War Latin America, edited by Sebastián Carassai and Kevin Coleman.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.

"From Gap Year Hijnks to Collectivist Awakenings: Che Guevara's Motorcycle Diaries in Fact and Fiction." In Latin American History at the Movies, edited by Donald Stevens.  New York: Macmillan, 2023

"The Limits of Nationalism: Bolivia between Washington, Prague, and Havana, 1960-1964." In Latin America and the Global Cold War, edited by Field, Pettinà, and Krepp. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.

Essays and Encyclopedia Entries

"Agency, Empire, and the United States in Cold War Latin America.  Latin Ameican Research Review 59/2: 492-502, 2024.

"U.S. and the Cold War in Latin America." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History, edited by William E. Beezley. Oxford University Press, 2019.

"Alliance for Progress." Encyclopedia of Diplomacy, edited by Gordon Martel. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.

"Walt Whitman Rostow." America in the World, 1776 to the Present, edited by Edward J. Blum. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2016.

Memberships and Credentials

American Historical Association

Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations

Conference on Latin American History

Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies

Pan-American Institute of Geography and History

Awards, Honors and Recognitions

2021 Robert W. Cherny Article Award, "Union Busting as Development," Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Assocation

2019, 2018 Class Marshal, Graduate Programs, Embry-Riddle

2015 Outstanding Academic Title, From Development to Dictatorship, American Library Association

2015 Thomas McGann Book Award, From Development to Dictatorship, Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies 

2014  Campus Researcher of the Year, Embry-Riddle

2013  Scouloudi Publication Grant, University of London Institute for Historical Research

2012 Stuart L. Bernath Article Prize, "Ideology as Strategy," Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations

2012, 2009 Moody Grant, Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation

2011 U.S. and the Cold War Postdoctoral Fellowship, Tamiment Library, New York University

2011 Betty M. Unterberger Dissertation Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations

2009 Marshall/Baruch Fellowship, George C. Marshall Foundation

2009 Samuel Flagg Bemis Grant, Society for Historians of Amreican Foreign Relations

2007 Marjorie Kovler Fellowship, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation