Steven M. Press

Steven M. Press

Research Fellow, WIGH
WCFIA Graduate Student Associate
PhD Candidate, Department of History, Harvard University

Steven Press holds a Ph.D. in History from Harvard University (2014). He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Stanford University. In 2014-2015 he was a College Fellow in History at Harvard; in 2015-2016 he was Research Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He was formerly a Dissertation Fellow and Graduate Student Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, a Research Fellow at the Weatherhead Global History Initiative, a Graduate Student Affiliate of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Research Fellow.

Steven's research interests are European sovereignty, international relations, and the development of the treaty system. His first book, Rogue Empires: Conmen and Contracts Behind Europe's Scramble for Africa (forthcoming Spring 2017 with Harvard University Press), draws on archival work in ten countries and three languages. The manuscript offers a new approach to understanding the European Scramble for Africa by examining one of its forgotten projects: empires run by companies and individual adventurers.

In a recent article in the Journal of Modern History, Steven has uncovered the exchanges between Germany, China, and Cuba that led to the USA's lease for Guantanamo Bay in 1903.

Contact Information

1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge MA 02138
p: 617-496-3586

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