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Karen Merrill

Associate Professor of History

B.A. (1986) Oberlin College
M.A. (1988) University of Denver, in Creative Writing/English
Ph.D. (1994) University of Michigan

Contact
Dean of the College
Hopkins Hall

Phone: 413.597.4261
Karen.R.Merrill@williams.edu
Office Hours:
Tuesdays 2:00-3:30



Courses Taught
HIST 159: The Origins of the Cold War
HIST 253: The United States from Appomattox to AOL, 1865-Present
HIST 270: American Politics from the Populists to the Present
HIST 301G: Westward Expansion in American History
HIST 357: The Rise of American Conservatism
HIST 474: The History of Oil

Selected Publications
Books:
Public Lands and Political Meaning: Ranchers, the Government, and the Property between Them (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)
The Modern Worlds of Business and Industry: Cultures, Technology, Labor, editor (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 1998)
The Oil Crisis (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, forthcoming)

Articles and Essays:
"Desire in a Dry Land," Journal of Urban History 29 (November 2004)
The New Deal's West,¯ in William Deverell, ed. Blackwell Companion to the History of the American West (New York: Blackwell Publishers, 2004)
Domesticated Bliss: Ranchers and Their Animals,¯ in Matthew Basso, Laura McCall, and Dee Garceau, eds., Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the U.S. West (New York: Routledge, 2000)
In Search of the Federal Presence in the American West,¯ Western Historical Quaterly 30 (Winter 1999)
Whose Home on the Range?¯ Western Historical Quaterly 27 (Winter 1996)

Research Interests
20th-century American Politics and Political Economy, American West, Environmental History

Theses Advised
Jonathan Langer, '04, "Half-Conquered Wilderness: The Failure of Settlement and Industrial Mining in Irwin, Colorado"
Amanda Stout, '04, "Breeding Hope: Science, Philanthropy, and the History of Mount Hope Farm," co-winner of the Turner Prize in History
Derek Ward '02: A History of the POW/MIA Issue¯ - winner of the Turner Prize in History
Judith Harvey '03: Subsistence in Alaska: Balancing Competing Visions of the Land in Fish and Game Management¯ (Environmental Studies) - winner of the Hardie Award in the Environmental Studies Program

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