Alfred W. McCoy
J.R.W. Smail Professor of History

eMail: awmccoy@wisc.edu
Phone: (608)263-1855
Office: 5131 Mosse Humanities
Mailbox: 5026 Mosse Humanities

Curriculum Vitae: View PDF

Office Hours: Thursdays 11:30 - 1:30

Education: PhD: Yale; MA: University of California-Berkeley; BA: Columbia College

Bio Sketch:

After earning a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history at Yale, my writing on this region has focused on two topics--the Philippine political history and opium trafficking in the Golden Triangle. My first book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York, 1972), sparked controversy when the CIA tried to block publication. But after three English editions and translation into nine foreign languages, this study is now regarded as the “classic” work on the global drug traffic.

My more recent work on covert operations, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (New York, 2006), explores agency’s half-century history of psychological torture. A film based in part on that book, "Taxi to the Darkside," won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2008.

The Philippines remains the major focus of my research. An investigation of President Marcos’s “fake medals,” published on page one of the New York Times (January 23, 1986) just weeks before the country’s presidential elections, contributed to the country’s the transition from authoritarian rule. Analyzing the many coup attempts that followed, my book Closer Than Brothers (New Haven, 1999) documents the corrosive impact of torture upon the Philippine military.

Three of my edited volumes on Philippine historiography have won that country's National Book Award. In 2001, the Association for Asian Studies awarded me the Goodman Prize for a “deep and enduring impact on Philippine historical studies.”

My latest book, Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (Madison, 2009), draws together these two strands in my research -- covert operations and modern Philippine history -- to explore the transformative power of police, information, and scandal in shaping both the modern Philippine state and the U.S. internal security apparatus. In 2011, the Association for Asian Studies awarded Policing America’s Empire the George McT. Kahin Prize, describing the work as “a passionate, elegantly written book that owes its mastery to McCoy's narrative and analytical gifts, his years of painstaking research and his sure sense of the ominous global implications of his story.”

In 2012, the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association awarded me the Wilbur Cross Medal which is presented annually to “a small number of outstanding alumni” to recognize “distinguished achievements in scholarship, teaching, academic administration, and public service.”

Research Interests:

Modern Philippine social and political history; U.S. foreign policy; colonial empires in Southeast Asia; global illicit drug trafficking; and CIA covert operations.

Selected Publications:

• "Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State" (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 659 pp.
• (ed. with Francisco Scarano), "Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State" (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 685 pp.
• ed.,  "An Anarchy of Families: Filipino Elites and the Philippine State"(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 451 pp.
• "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror" (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 288 pp.
• "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Traffic" (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, revised, 2003), 709 pp.
• ed., "Lives at the Margin: Biographies of Filipinos Ordinary, Heroic, Obscure" (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000), 481 pp.
•  "Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 425 pp.

Awards:

• Association for Asian Studies, George Kahin Prize, 2011.
• University of Wisconsin Graduate School, J.R.W. Smail Chair in History, 2004.
• Philippine National Book Award, 1985, 1995, 2001.
• Association for Asian Studies, Grant Goodman Prize, 2001.
• Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad, 1998-99.

Courses Taught:

Lecture Courses:

• History 319 - The Vietnams Wars - Syllabus 2011 (pdf)
• History 458 - Southeast Asia Since 1800 - Syllabus 2012 (pdf)

Undergraduate Seminars:

• History 600 - Advanced Seminar in History - Topics: "Empire & Revolution: U.S. and European Colonialism in Southeast Asia" - Syllabus 2011 (pdf); "World War II in the Pacific"; "CIA Covert Warfare and Conduct of US Foreign Policy" - Syllabus 2012 (pdf)

Graduate Courses:

• History 755 - Pro-seminar in Southeast Asian History - Topics: "Empire & Revolution: U.S. and European Colonialism in Southeast Asia" Syllabus 2011 (pdf); "World War II in the Pacific" - Syllabus 2007 (pdf) ;"CIA Covert Warfare and Conduct of US Foreign Policy" - Syllabus 2009 (pdf); "Reality of Images--Environmental Photography in Southeast Asia";"Islands of Southeast Asia--The Practice of Comparative History";"Tropical Dictators--Authoritarianism in Indonesia & the Philippines"