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: TBA

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

Bio Sketch:

After earning a Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history at Yale in 1977, my writing on this region has focused on two topics--the political history of the modern Philippines and the politics of opium in the Golden Triangle. My first book, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (New York, 1972), originally sparked controversy when the CIA tried to block its 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 (Revised Edition, New York, 2003).

Three of my books on Philippine history have won that country's National Book Award. And in 2001, the Association for Asian Studies awarded me the Goodman Prize for career contributions to the historical study of the Philippines. My most recent monograph on that country, Closer Than Brothers (New Haven, 1999), studies the impact of CIA torture training upon the Philippine military.

Drawing on lessons learned from torture’s lingering legacy in the Philippines, I published A Question of Torture:  CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror  (New York, 2006), exploring the impact on America of a half-century of propagating and practicing psychological torture.

Through these global studies of crime and covert operations, my work has, in recent years, moved beyond a regional focus on Southeast Asia to broader, transnational reflections on the character of what I call, for want of better words, the “covert netherworld”—that invisible interstice inhabited by criminal syndicates and clandestine services.

Research Interests:

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

Selected Publications:

• ed.,  "An Anarchy of Families: Filipino Elites and the Philippine State" (Manila: Ateneo University Press, 1994), pp. 451.
• "Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 425.
• ed., "Lives at the Margin: Biographies of Filipinos Ordinary, Heroic, Obscure" (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2000), pp. 481.
• "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Traffic" (New York: Lawrence Hill Books, revised, 2003), pp. 709.
• "Foltern und Foltern Lassen: 50 Jahre Folter-Forschung und -Praxis von CIA und US-Militar" (Frankfurt/Main: Zweitausendeins, 2005), pp. 255.
• "A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror" (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 288 pp.

Awards:

• 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 2007 (pdf)
• History 458 - Southeast Asia Since 1800 - Syllabus 2008 (pdf)

Undergraduate Seminars:

• History 600 - Advanced Seminar in History - Topics: "Empire & Revolution in Southeast Asia" Syllabus 2007 (pdf); "World War II in the Pacific";"CIA Covert Warfare and Conduct of US Foreign Policy"

Graduate Courses:

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