Professor of History
Director, Center for Greater Southwestern Studies
University of Texas at Arlington
Ph.D., History, University of Houston
M.A., History, University of Houston
B.A., History, Columbia University
Professor, University of Texas at Arlington, 2010-present
Director, Center for Greater Southwestern Studies, 2008-present
Associate Professor, University of Texas at Arlington, 1997-2010
Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Arlington, 1993-1997
Teacher, the Kinkaid School, 1983-1992
Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas (New York: Basic Books, 2022)
Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010
James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse, Library of American Biography Series, New York: Addison, Wesley, Longman, 1996 (rev. second edition, 2001; rev. third edition, 2006)
A Concise History of America and Its People (with James K. Martin, Steven Mintz, Randy Roberts, Linda McMurry, and James Jones), New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995
Soldiers of Misfortune: The Somervell and Mier Expeditions, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990 (paperback edition, 1997)
Contested Empire: Rethinking the Texas Revolution (with Gerald Saxon), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015.
Major Problems in Texas History (with Cary Wintz), Boston: Cengage, 2001 (rev. second edition, forthcoming, 2015)
Remembering the Mexican Revolution: Conflict and Consolidation, 1910-1940 (with Douglas Richmond) Texas A&M University Press, 2013
The United States and Mexico at War: Expansion and Conflict (with Donald Frazier, Paul Lack, Pedro Santoni and Bruce Winders) New York: Macmillan, 1998
Manifest Destiny and Empire (with Christopher Morris), College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997
Journal of the Texian Expedition Against Mier, by Thomas Jefferson Green, Austin: W. Thomas Taylor Publishers, 1994
Border Land: The Struggle for Texas. This project will map sites of conflict between Anglo-Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans in Texas from Mexican independence to statehood.
A Continent Divided: The U.S.-Mexico War, http://library.uta.edu/usmexicowar/. (2010-present). A multi-year project to digitize the UT Arlington Library's extensive U.S.-Mexico War collection.
"El Estallido de la Rebelión Texana," Desperta Ferro, Madrid, Spain, 2022
"Heirs to a Revolution: Looking for the Spirit of '76 in the Anglo-Texan Struggle Against Mexico," Major Problems in Texas History, Haynes and Wintz, eds., Cengage Publishing, 2015
"'Imitating the Example of Our Forefathers:' The Texas Revolution as Historical Re-Enactment," Contested Empire: Rethinking the Texas Revolution, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2015
"Manifest Destiny and the American Southwest," A Companion to the Era of Andrew Jackson, Sean Patrick Adams, ed., Blackwell Companions to American History series, Wiley-Blackwell Publishers, 2012
"Sam Houston and His Antagonists," in Sam W. Haynes and Cary Wintz, eds. Major Problems in Texas History, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2001
"'But What Will England Say?' The United States and Great Britain in the U.S.-Mexican War," Dueling Eagles: Reinterpreting the U.S.-Mexican War, Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2000
"Breaking the Iron Hoop:" U.S. Fears of British Encirclement and the War Against Mexico," in La Destinée Manifeste des Etats-Unis au XIXe Siecle: Aspects Politiques et Ideologiques, Pierre Lagayette, ed. Paris: Ellipses Publications, 1999
"Anglophobia and the Annexation of Texas: The Quest for National Security," in Sam W. Haynes and Christopher Morris, eds. Manifest Destiny and Empire, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997
Senior Fellow, Bill and Rita Clements Fellowship for the Study of the American Southwest, William Clements Center, Southern Methodist University, 2019-20
Faculty Development Leave, UT Arlington, 2014
Elected Fellow, Texas State Historical Association, 2017
Endowment Award for Research and Creative Activity, College of Liberal Arts, UT Arlington, 2015
Faculty Development Leave, University of Texas at Arlington, 2014
Creative and Research Excellence Award, for Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World, College of Liberal Arts, 2012
History Book of the Month Club selection, Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World, 2011
Excellence Fund Award for Research and Creative Activity, State of Texas, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009
William Gilmore Simms Visiting Research Professorship, University of South Carolina, 2002
Library Company Research Fellowship, Philadelphia, 2000
Elected Member, Texas Institute of Letters, 1998
Beinecke Visiting Research Fellowship, Yale University, 1997
Faculty Development leave, University of Texas at Arlington, 1997
Research and Enhancement Program grant, University of Texas at Arlington, 1997
College of Liberal Arts Summer Research Grant, University of Texas at Arlington, 1996
Dobie-Paisano Writers' Fellowship, Texas Institute of Letters, 1993
Nominee, President's Award for Transformative Online Education, May 2017
Alicia Wilkerson Smotherman Faculty Award, College of Liberal Arts, UT Arlington, 2008
Kalpana Chawla STAR Faculty Award, Maverick Scholars Learning Communities and Freshmen Interest Groups, 2008
Nominee, Academy of Distinguished Teachers, UT Arlington, 2005
Nominee, Golladay Award, College of Liberal Arts, UT Arlington, 2005
Voted a "Favorite Professor" by UTA Maverick Orientation Leaders, UT Arlington, 2005
Recognized Mentor, McNair Scholars Program, 1996
Principal Investigator, Border Land: The Struggle for Texas Website Project, $20,000, Summerlee Foundation, 2017
Principal Investigator, Border Land: The Struggle for Texas Website Project, $1,500, Humanities Texas, 2016
Principal Investigator, Border Land: The Struggle for Texas Website Project, $10,000, College of Liberal Arts, 2015
Principal Investigator, "A Continent Divided: the U.S.-Mexico War," $23,000, Internal Funding, Summer, 2013
Conference Coordinator, "A Frontier Odyssey: The Lives and Legacy of Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker," Photo Exhibit and Symposium, $8,000, Internal Funding, 2013
Principal Investigator, "A Continent Divided: the U.S.-Mexico War," Summerlee Foundation, $30,000, 2012
Principal Investigator, Mexican War Broadsides Digitization Project, College of Liberal Arts Seed grant, $10,000, Internal funding, 2011
Principal Investigator, "Covering the War Next Door," Humanities Texas $1,500, 2011
Principal Investigator, "Remembering the Mexican Revolution, 1910-20" Centennial Program, Summerlee Foundation, $15,000, 2009-10
Principal Investigator, "Remembering the Mexican Revolution, 1910-20" Centennial Program, Humanities Texas, $3,000, 2009-10
Interviewed, "The Alamo in History and Memory," Clio the Muse, https://watch.zondratv.com/program-group/11060a02a3001ba0f6320ece38b60577
Interviewed, "The Frontiersmen: The Men Who Built America," The History Channel, 2018
Interviewed, "Strange Inheritance: The Cordova Map," Towers Productions, 2015
Interviewed, "The Texas Republic," Houston Arts and Media, 2014
Interviewed and Chief Research Consultant, "The Mexican-American War," History Channel, 2006
Interviewed, "The Presidents," History Channel, 2005
Interviewed, "The U.S.-Mexican War," KERA-TV, Dallas, 1998
Research consultant, "The Real West: The Mexican-American War," A&E Network, 1993
Interviewed, "La Masacre de Goliad: el Sangriento Episodio que Impulsó la Independencia de Texas de México," BBC Mundo, 2021
Interviewed, "Robert M. Williamson and the Founding of Georgetown" Hippo Network, 2019
Interviewed, "What Does It Mean to Remember the Alamo, And What Should We Teach Our Kids?" National Public Radio, The Texas Standard, 2018
Interviewed, "A UT Arlington Project is Busting the Narrative of Anglo-centric History," KERA, Dallas, 2017
Interviewed, "What a 1950s Textbook Can Tell us About Today's Textbook Fight," KUT, Austin, 2016
Interviewed, The Glen Mitchell Show, KERA Dallas, 1999
Interviewed, The Glen Mitchell Show, KERA Dallas, 1998