Expertise

U.S. Foreign Relations, U.S.-Latin American Relations; Global

Biography

Alan McPherson specializes in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations and teaches broadly in U.S. foreign relations and global history. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2001 after receiving an M.A. in history from San Francisco State University (1996) and a B.A. in history and economics from the Université de Montréal (1994). Before coming to Temple, he also taught at the University of Oklahoma (2008-2017) and Howard University (2001-2008). He has published twelve books and dozens of articles and chapters and has been a fellow at Harvard University and twice a Fulbright Fellow.

Curriculum Vitae

Selected Publications

Books

• The Breach: Iran-Contra and the Assault on American Democracy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2025. 
• Ghosts of Sheridan Circle. Alan McPherson. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 
• General editor. The SHAFR Guide: An Annotated Bibliography of United States Foreign Relations Since 1600. Leiden: Brill, 2017, 2022, 2027.
• A Short History of US Interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016.
• Co-editor with Yannick Wehrli, and contributor. Beyond Geopolitics: New Histories of Latin America at the League of Nations. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2015.
• The World and U2: One Band’s Remaking of Global Activism. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Named among The Globalist’s Top Books of 2015
• The Invaded: How Latin Americans and their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Winner of the 2015 Ellis W. Hawley Prize, Organization of American Historians; winner of the 2015 Murdo J. MacLeod Book Prize, Latin American and Caribbean Section, Southern Historical Association; winner of the 2014 William LeoGrande Prize, American University
• Editor and contributor. The Encyclopedia of U.S. Military Interventions in Latin America. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2013.
• Co-editor with Ivan Krastev, and contributor. The Anti-American Century. Budapest and New York: Central European Press, 2007.
• Intimate Ties, Bitter Struggles: The United States and Latin America since 1945. Series: Issues in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations. Series editor: Robert McMahon. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2006.
• Editor and contributor. Anti-Americanism in Latin America and the Caribbean. Series: Explorations in Culture and International History. Series editors: Jessica Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006.
• Yankee No! Anti-Americanism in U.S.-Latin American Relations. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. Winner of the A. B. Thomas Award, Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies; Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• “Two Visions of Government: Iran-Contra and the Debate Over American Democracy,’ Journal of American History, 112; 1 (June 2025): 92-116.
• “‘Above the Written Law’: Iran-Contra and the Mirage of the Rule of Law," Law and History Review 42; 2 (May 2024), 393-415.
• “Sandino in Mexico: The Perils of Anti-Imperialist Alliances,” The Latin Americanist 67; 4 (December 2023): 399-427.
• “Protecting a President and Graymailing Courts: Iran-Contra and Obstruction of Justice,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 53; 3 (September 2023): 570-582.
• “‘The Most Marketable Political Commodity’: Oliver North, Iran-Contra, and American Domestic Politics," Modern American History 6; 2 (July 2023): 135-155.
• “Sub-Perpetrators in the Chilean Security State,” The Latin Americanist 66; 3 (September 2022): 272-301. Honorable Mention, Helen Delpar Prize, Southeastern Council for Latin American Studies, 2023.
• “Introduction: Branching Out: New Research on the History of U.S.-Latin American Relations,” The Latin Americanist 65; 4 (December 2021): 456-459.
• “Counterterrorism in U.S. Civil Courts: The Role of Letelier v. Republic of Chile,” Law and History Review 39; 1 (February 2021): 1-27. 
• “Strange Bedfellows at the End of the Cold War: The Letelier Assassination, Human Rights, and National Sovereignty,” Cold War History 21; 1 (January 2021): 1-18.
• “Derrota y triunfo de la no-intervención en la Sociedad de las Naciones y las conferencias panamericanas,” Clío: Órgano de la Academia Dominicana de la Historia 89; 200 (July-December 2020): 291-310. 
• “Letelier Diplomacy: Non-State Actors and U.S.-Chilean Relations,” Diplomatic History 43: 3 (June 2019): 445-468.
• “Caribbean Taliban: Cuban-American Terrorism in the 1970s,” Terrorism and Political Violence 31: 2 (March-April 2019): 390-409. 
• “Herbert Hoover, Occupation Withdrawal, and the Good Neighbor Policy,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 44: 4 (December 2014): 623-639.
• “Lid Sitters and Prestige Seekers: The U.S. Navy v. the State Department and the End of US Occupations,” The Journal of Military History 78 (January 2014): 523-556
• “Foreigners Under U.S. Occupations in the Caribbean,” The International History Review 35: 1 (March 2013): 100-120.
• “The Irony of Legal Pluralism in U.S. Occupations,” The American Historical Review 117: 4 (October 2012): 1149-1172.
• “Joseph Jolibois Fils and the Flaws of Haitian Resistance to U.S. Occupation,” The Journal of Haitian Studies 16: 2 (fall 2010 (published 2011)): 120-147.
• “Personal Occupations: Women’s Responses to U.S. Military Occupations in Latin America,” The Historian 72: 3 (fall 2010): 568-598.
• “Rioting for Dignity: Masculinity, National Identity, and Anti-U.S. Resistance in Panama,” Gender & History 19: 2 (August 2007): 219-241.
• “The Limits of Populist Diplomacy: Fidel Castro’s April 1959 Trip to North America,” Diplomacy and Statecraft 18: 1 (March 2007): 237-268.
• “Courts of World Opinion: Trying the Panama Flag Riots of 1964.” Diplomatic History 28: 1 (January 2004): 83-112.
• “Misled by Himself: What the Johnson Tapes Reveal about the Dominican Intervention of 1965.” Latin American Research Review 38: 2 (June 2003): 127-146.
• “From ‘Punks’ to Geopoliticians: U.S. and Panamanian Teenagers and the 1964 Canal Zone Riots.” The Americas 58: 3 (January 2002): 395-418.

Courses Taught

• The Global Crisis: Power, Politics, and the Making of Our Times
• America’s Rise to Globalism
• Superpower America
• Capstone Research Seminar
• Studies in American Diplomatic History