It has just been announced that fall 2024, I will be a National Governing Institutions Fellow at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. I will be in residence in Washington, D.C. to research and work on a new book project tracking the U.S. government’s relationship to information collection from the Ciivl War to present day.
C-SPAN American History TV Interview
You can now watch an interview I did for C-SPAN which covers how a historian ended up working in technology policy, the history and present of police surveillance in the United States, and my next research project. Watch it here.
Book talk at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
It’s been a busy few months of book events discussing Police and the Empire City all across the United States. On June 6, the tour continues with a conversation with historian Carl Suddler at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta.
Announcing: The Church Committee Report: A 50th Anniversary Edition for W.W.Norton
We are officially announcing that Brian Hochman, Georgetown Professor and author of The Listeners: A History of Wire Tapping in the United States and I will be producing a single-volume 50th anniversary edition of The Church Committee Report for W.W.Norton & Company. The volume will be published in fall 2025 and include a forward by Beverly Gage.
"Is Clarence Darrow Dead?" is now available to read at Surveillance & Society
You can read the short journal article, Is Clarence Darrow Dead?: A Reflection on the FBI, Surveillance, and Hoarded Information here at the journal. It’s a reflection on my new research project into the relationship between power and information.
Podcast Appearance on the New Books Networks to discuss Police on the Empire City.
You can listen to my appearance on the New Books Podcast Network to discuss Police and the Empire City in anticipation of its November 17, 2023 publication date. Listen to the great conversation with Jeffrey Lamson and me.
New chapter in forthcoming edited volume "Managing Migration in Italy and the United States" to be published in December 2023
De Gruyter press will be published Managing Migration in Italy and the United States edited by Lauren Braun-Strumfels , Maddalena Marinari and Daniele Fiorentino on December 31, 2023. I have a chapter in this volume called “Italian Immigration and the US Turn to International Policing” which explores the legal innovations and turn to International police collaboration catalyzed by panics over international Italian organized crime.
New Article to be Published in the journal Surveillance & Society in December
In the December 2023 issue of Surveillance and Society, I have a new short article entitled “Is Clarence Darrow Dead?”— a reflection on the role of the FBI’s massive stockpile of files on individuals in the public imaginary.
Police & the Empire City now in Pre-order with 30% off code
My book, Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York is now available for preorder at Duke University Press. Use code E23PATEC for 30% off. https://www.dukeupress.edu/police-and-the-empire-city
Peer-reviewed article "Police as Supercitizens" published in journal Social Justice.
Political scientist and lawyer Brittany Arsiniega and I have publish a journal article exploring the history and present of tiered citizenship in the United States and how the legal rights and social privileges utilized by police constitutes a higher class of citizenship than the average person. You can download read a copy of it here.
Police and the Empire City will be available Fall 2023
Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York will be published by Duke University Press in Fall 2023. For more information please visit here.
Watch: In conversation with Brian Hochman on CSPAN
Watch: Navigating Freedom of Information Act Requests
Begining new position as Affiliated Scholar at University of California, Hastings-School of Law
After two years in residence as a visiting scholar in the Department of History at University of California-Berkeley researching and writing the manuscript of Police and the Empire City, July 15, 2021, I join the Institute for Criminal Justice at University of California, Hastings-School of Law as an affiliated scholar. At Hastings I will continue researching, writing, and lecturing about the relationship between policing, information, and technology—as well as the history of criminalization and racialization in the United States.
Book on Race, Immigration, Empire, and the Rise of Modern Policing in New York now under contract.
My book, working title: Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York City, is now under contract with Duke University Press. The book will be a greatly expanded version of my dissertation and will explore how politicians, social scientists, bureaucrats, and beat cops built the New York City Police Department as an amalgam of tactics and technologies imported from all over the globe in an attempt to subordinate the rapidly diversifying industrialized city.
Announcing: The Essential Kerner Commission Report
Columbia University Professor and New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb and I have edited The Essential Kerner Commission Report, to be published by W.W.Norton & Company’s Liverlight in Spring/Summer 2021.
Speaking on Race and Policing at the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues
On September 15, 2020, I have been invited by Dickinson College to speak on Race and Policing at the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues. I’ll be joined by law professors and scholars of criminal justice to discuss recent protests against racial state violence. Learn more about the event here.
Interviewed on CNBC about police surveillance of Black Lives Matter protests.
Interviewed for NBC on Pirvacy and Household Technology
Dissertation Wins Outstanding Dissertation from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society
My dissertation The American Problem: Race, Empire, and Policing New York City, 1840-1930 is the 2020 winner of the IEHS’s Outstanding Dissertation Award. You can lean more about the committee’s evaluation of my dissertation here.