Jason C. Parker

Research Interests

Jason Parker specializes in the history of US-“Third World” relations, studying both the formal and informal “diplomacy” embedded in the interactions of empires, nations, and peoples.  His research examines the ways in which state- and non-state actors in the United States engaged with their counterparts abroad within a complicated matrix of strategy, security, decolonization, and race during the long “American Century.”  His first book, Brother’s Keeper: The United States, Race, and Empire in the British Caribbean, 1937-1962 (Oxford, 2008), looked at the actions of US-based actors-­ the American government, African Americans, and Caribbean immigrants– in the push for independence in the British West Indies.  His second book, Hearts, Minds, Voices:  U.S. Cold War Public Diplomacy and the Formation of the Third World (Oxford, 2016), examined U.S. efforts at "winning hearts and minds" in the global-South during the first half of the Cold War.

Areas of Speciality

• U.S. in the World
• Modern U.S.
• Cold War
• Decolonization
• Caribbean / Global South