Jason Scott Smith
Associate Professor • United States
Contact
email: jssmith@unm.edu
office: 2098 Mesa Vista Hall
office phone: (505) 277-1163
Profile
An award-winning author and teacher, Professor Smith is a specialist in political history and political economy. His first book, Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956 (Cambridge University Press, 2006), received the 2007 Abel Wolman Award for the best book in public works history. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, he held fellowships at Harvard and Cornell before joining the UNM faculty. Smith has written articles and essays for a number of publications, including USA Today, Reviews in American History, Journal of Social History, Pacific Historical Review, and Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Currently he is working on a number of projects, including a concise history of the New Deal for Cambridge University Press's “Essential Histories” series.
Education
B.A. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A. University of California, Berkeley
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley
Research
Political history and political economy (the history of capitalism, business, labor, and the state).
Selected Publications
Building New Deal Liberalism: The Political Economy of Public Works, 1933-1956 (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
“A Reintroduction to Political Economy: History, Institutions, and Power,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 36 (summer 2005)
“New Deal Public Works at War: The WPA and Japanese American Internment,” Pacific Historical Review 72 (February 2003)
“What Did Happen to the Antitrust Movement?” Reviews in American History 30 (December 2002)
“The Strange History of the Decade: Modernity, Nostalgia, and the Perils of Periodization,” Journal of Social History 32 (winter 1998)
Awards
Abel Wolman Award for Best Book in Public Works History [for Building New Deal Liberalism], from the Public Works Historical Society and the American Public Works Association, 2007.
Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in American Studies, Cornell University, Department of History and Department of Government. July 2004-June 2006.
Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellowship in Business History, Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, July 2001-June 2002.
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award for Teaching Excellence, University of California, Berkeley, spring 2001.
Courses
US History to 1877
US History since 1877
20th Century US History
Recent American History


