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Seton Hall University
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Geoff Burrows , Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of History

(973) 275-5846
Email

Fahy Hall
Room 346

Geoff Burrows, Ph.D.

Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of History

I am interested in US, Latin American, and Caribbean history during the Great Depression and Cold War. My research, which concentrates on the transnational exchange of ideas, policies, and people between the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean since 1898, grapples with the complicated legacy of US imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean by demonstrating how modernization programs in colonies such as Puerto Rico have been more complex than mere development strategies or empire building projects. Rather, by examining the cross-class participation of Puerto Ricans in a locally run federal agency, I analyze how that the global focus of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal altered the meaning and practice of US citizenship for Puerto Ricans on the island and in the United States. By placing Puerto Rico into comparative perspective with Cuba and the Dominican Republic, my work also examines the ambiguous relationship between Puerto Rico and other regions of Latin America and the Caribbean during the Great Depression, World War II, and Cold War. To this end, I have recently begun research on how the Puerto Rican New Deal was used as a leading case for various slum clearance and housing construction programs in Latin America during John F. Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. I am currently working on a book manuscript based on my dissertation, “The New Deal in Puerto Rico: Public Works, Public Health, and the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, 1935-1955.”