Ian Rocksborough-Smith

posts and bio Ian Rocksborough-Smith

Ian Rocksborough-Smith teaches US and Canadian history at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) in Abbotsford, B.C., Canada. He is the author of Black Public History in Chicago: Civil Rights Activism from World War II into the Cold War . He has been the Human Rights and International Solidarity Federation of Post-Secondary Educators (FPSE) Representative for the UFV-Faculty and Staff Association (Local 7).

William Riddell On the Waves of Empire

William D. Riddell On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924

by on August 31, 2023

Ian Rocksborough-Smith interviewed William D. Riddell about his new book On the Waves of Empire: U.S. Imperialism and Merchant Sailors, 1872-1924, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2023. Set mainly in the years preceding and following the Spanish-American War (1898) through World War I (1914-1918) and its aftermath, the book looks especially at the experiences of merchant sailors, their unions, and their labor leaders to indicate how class conflict impacted America’s emergent 20th Century empire.

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