The talk is sponsored by the social sciences division chair and the departments of economics, history and sociology.

The talk critically examines American political and economic development and its engagement with the world through the lens of illicit trade, from molasses smuggling in Colonial times to cross-border bootlegging during Prohibition to “cybersmuggling” in the digital age.

Andreas will look at the little-studied role of illicit commerce in the country’s early economic development and industrialization, westward expansion and international influence, including the East Asian opium trade and opium wars.

He will also examine how prohibitions and anti-smuggling campaigns have stimulated the growth of the federal government’s internal and external policing powers. The focus is on the clandestine movement of people (illicit slave trading, migrant smuggling, sex trafficking) and of goods (prohibited, stolen and untaxed commodities).

Andreas has written, co-written or co-edited eight books. Prior to Brown, he was an academy scholar at Harvard University, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and an SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Fellow on International Peace and Security. He holds a master’s degree and doctorate in government from Cornell University and a bachelor’s in political science from Swarthmore College.

Zinn, a former professor of history at Boston University and Spelman College, received the Albert Beveridge Prize from the American Historical Association for his book LaGuardia in Congress (Greenwood Press, 1972). His other books include The Southern Mystique, S.N.C.C.: The New Abolitionists, (South End Press, South End Press Ed ed., 2002) New Deal Thought, (Prentice Hall College Div., 1966) Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal, (South End Press, 2002) Disobedience and Democracy, (South End Press, 2002) The Politics of History, (University of Illinois Press; 2nd ed., 1990) Postwar America, 1945-1971 (South End Press, 2002) and Declarations of Independence, (Perennial, 1991) which won the Olive Branch Award in 1991.

Zinn’s play Emma, about the anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman, has been produced in New York, Boston, London, Edinburgh and Tokyo. His other plays include Unsafe Distances and Marx in Soho. He received a bachelor’s degree from New University and master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University.