Associate Professor of History
- B.A. (1986) Oberlin College
- M.A. (1988) University of Denver, in Creative Writing/English
- Ph.D. (1994) University of Michigan
- Karen.R.Merrill@williams.edu
- Stetson H17
- 413.597.2527
- Office Hours
- Tuesday 2:00-3:30
- Courses
- HIST 159: The Origins of the Cold War
- HIST 253: The United States from Appomattox to AOL, 1865-Present
- HIST 270: American Politics from the Populists to the Present
- HIST 301G: Westward Expansion in American History
- HIST 357: The Rise of American Conservatism
- HIST 474: The History of Oil
- Research
- 20th-century American Politics and Political Economy, American West, Environmental History
- Thesis Students
- Jonathan Langer, '04, "Half-Conquered Wilderness: The Failure of Settlement and Industrial Mining in Irwin, Colorado"
- Amanda Stout, '04, "Breeding Hope: Science, Philanthropy, and the History of Mount Hope Farm," co-winner of the Turner Prize in History
- Derek Ward '02: “A History of the POW/MIA Issue” - winner of the Turner Prize in History
- Judith Harvey '03: “Subsistence in Alaska: Balancing Competing Visions of the Land in Fish and Game Management” (Environmental Studies) - winner of the Hardie Award in the Environmental Studies Program
- Selected Publications
- Books:
- Public Lands and Political Meaning: Ranchers, the Government, and the Property between Them (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)
- The Modern Worlds of Business and INdustry: Cultures, Technology, Labor, editor (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 1998)
- The Oil Crisis (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's Press, forthcoming)
- Articles and Essays:
- "Desire in a Dry Land," Journal of Urban History 29 (November 2004)
- “The New Deal's West,” in William Deverell, ed. Blackwell Companion to the History of the American West (New York: Blackwell Publishers, 2004)
- “Domesticated Bliss: Ranchers and Their Animals,” in Matthew Basso, Laura McCall, and Dee Garceau, eds., Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the U.S. West (New York: Routledge, 2000)
- “In Search of the ‘Federal Presence’ in the American West,” Western Historical Quaterly 30 (Winter 1999)
- “Whose Home on the Range?” Western Historical Quaterly 27 (Winter 1996)