Thomas J. McCormick

Thomas J. McCormick (March 6, 1933 – July 25, 2020)^[1] was an American academic who was emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the same place he got a Ph. D.^[2] where he succeeded William Appleman Williams and continued the groundbreaking work of the so-called Wisconsin School of diplomatic history. Indeed he is considered one of the core members of the Wisconsin School, along with Williams, Walter LaFeber, and Lloyd Gardner.^[3]^[4] He has used Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems approach to describe the dynamics of hegemony in US diplomatic history^[5] and also studied US corporatism.^[6]

McCormick taught at the Ohio University, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Wisconsin–Madison where he won the Wisconsin Student Association Award for Teaching Excellence (1992-1993). He was a Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow (1981), Distinguished Fulbright Lecturer at University College Dublin (1993-1994), and Vilas Associate (1996-1998). McCormick authored six books (see Works) and many influential articles.^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16] He often gave US guest lectures^[17]^[18]^[19]^[20] as well as several keynote addresses at worldwide conferences.^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]

On December 4, 2023, the University of Wisconsin–Madison Senate Faculty passed a memorial resolution^[25] honoring the career and life of Professor Thomas J. McCormick.

Works

China Market: America's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1967.
Creation of the American Empire: U.S. Diplomatic History. With Lloyd C. Gardner and Walter F. LaFeber. New York: Rand McNally & Co., 1973.
America in Vietnam. With William A. Williams and Walter F. LaFeber. New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1988.
America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990, revised second edition 1995.
The Vietnam War: Four American Perspectives. With William Westmorland, George McGovern, and Edward Luttwack. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1990.
Behind the Throne: Servants of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898-1968. With Walter F. LaFeber (eds.) Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.

Footnotes

^ "McCormick, Thomas Joseph, Jr". Madison.com. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
^ "History Department Emeriti/Emeritae". Archived from the original on 8 December 2010. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
^ Crapol, Edward (February 1987). "Some Reflections on the Historiography of the Cold War". The History Teacher. 20 (2): 251–262. doi:10.2307/493031. JSTOR 493031.
^ Morgan, James G. (2014). Into New Territory: American Historians and the Concept of American Imperialism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 172.
^ Gale, Thomas. "Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450". Modern World-System Analysis. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
^ Williams, William A. (1961). The Contours of American History. W. W. Norton Company. ISBN 9780393305616.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1963). "Insular Imperialism and the Open Door: The China Market and the Spanish-American War". Pacific Historical Review.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1971). "The State of American Diplomatic History". The State of American History.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1972). "Exporting the Social Question". New Perspectives in American History.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1982). "Drift or Mastery? The Corporatist Synthesis in American Diplomatic History". The Promise of American History.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1978). "Every System Needs A Center Sometime--An Essay on Hegemony and Modern American Foreign Policy". Redefining the Past.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1991). "Systemic Explanations". Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1992). "The 1890s as Watershed Decade". Safeguarding the Republic, 1890-1990.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1993). "Walking the Tightrope: Adolf A. Berle, Jr. and America's Journey from Social to Global Capitalism, 1933-1945". Behind the Throne: Servants of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898-1968.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1994). "Creating the New Co-Prosperity Sphere: The United States, Japan and Asia, 1945-1954". Bulletin of Asian Studies. IV.
^ McCormick, Thomas (2005). "American Hegemony and European Autonomy, 1989-2003: One Framework for Understanding the War in Iraq". The New American Empire.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1988). "American Hegemony and the Roots of the Vietnam War". Louis B. Sears Lectures.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1962). "The Spanish-American War and American China Policy". Association of Asian Studies.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1969). "The State of American Diplomatic History". Organization of American Historians.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1981). "Social History, Corporatism, and American Diplomatic History". Woodrow Wilson Center.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1983). "The Corporatist Synthesis in American Diplomatic History". Japanese Association of American Studies. Kyoto, Japan.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1993). "Glancing Backward, Looking Forward: A Retrospective on the World-System and its Prospects for the Next Quarter-Century". Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership and the American Center. Osaka, Japan.
^ McCormick, Thomas (1996). "The Promise and Perils of American Hegemony". French Association of American Studies. Lyon, France.
^ McCormick, Thomas (2000). "Modern Hegemony and the Rhythms of History". Japanese Association of Western History. Osaka, Japan.
^ "Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison On the Death of Professor Emeritus Thomas J. McCormick" (PDF). University of Wisconsin-Madison. UW-Madison Faculty.