Professor John J. McCusker

John J.McCusker is the Ewing Halsell Distinguished Professor of American History and Professor of Economics at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.  Born and raised in upstate New York, he did graduate work at the University of Rochester, where he studied with 1993 Nobel Laureate in Economic Science Robert W. Fogel; at  University College of the University of London, where he worked as a graduate research student with the support of Prof Harry C. Allen; and at the University of Pittsburgh, where Prof. Carter Goodrich directed his doctoral dissertation. He received the degree Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh in 1970. Before moving to Texas in 1992, he taught for twenty-four years at the University of Maryland. At Trinity University he offers classes in the general history of the United States, United States economic and business history, and the history of seventeenth and eighteenth century British America. Since 1994 he has served--in an honorary capacity--as Adjunct Professor of early American History at the University of Texas, Austin.
     In his research and writing McCusker focuses on the economy of the Atlantic World during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He has published several books: Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775: A Handbook (1978; reissued with corrections, 1992); European Marine Lists and Bills of Entry: Early Commercial Publications and the Origins of the Business Press (1985); The Economy of British America, 1607-1789 (1985; 2nd ed., with a supplementary bibliography, 1991), co-authored with Russell R. Menard; Rum and the American Revolution: The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirteen Continental Colonies (1989); The Beginnings of Commercial and Financial Journalism: The Commodity Price Currents, Exchange Rate Currents, and Money Currents of Early Modern Europe (1991), co-authored with Cora Gravesteijn;  How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (1992; reprinted, 1993; 2nd ed., rev., 2001); Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World  (1997); and, co-edited with Kenneth Morgan, The Early Modern Atlantic Economy (2001).  The Economy of British America won two honors: it was named an  "Outstanding Academic Book" for 1985-1986 by Choice and given a Distinguished Book Award, Honorable Mention, by the Society of Colonial Wars. McCusker has written numerous shorter studies for such learned periodicals as The William and Mary Quarterly, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre Mer, The Harvard Library Bulletin, and The Journal of Economic History. He has contributed a chapter titled "Crecimiento y Cambio en la Economía de las Colonias Inglesas" to volume twenty, Angloamérica, of the Historia General de América (Caracas, 1986). Recognized by Forbes magazine as an "authority on colonial economics," McCusker is currently at work on several projects related to the production, trade, and consumption of sugar, molasses, and rum in the  Atlantic World prior to 1789.  He has recently accepted an appointment as editor-in-chief of the new, two-volume Economic History of World Trade, since 1450: An Encyclopedia (forthcoming in 2005).  His next book, now in progress, is tentatively titled The Price of Sugar in the Atlantic World.
     McCusker has lectured and taught in Belgium, Canada, China, England, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, and the United States. He has served on the boards of editors of such scholarly journals as the Business History Review, the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Economic History, the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Economy and Society and the William and Mary Quarterly. His research has been supported by grants and appointments from, among others, the Fulbright Senior Scholar Program, the Smithsonian Institution, Harvard University, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Enterprise Institute, the Leverhulme Trust (Great Britain), the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.   Various learned societies have elected him to their membership, notably the Royal Historical Society in 1976, of which he is a Fellow, and the American Antiquarian Society in 1988. So did the Cosmos Club in 1992.  He has served the societies and associations to which he belongs in a variety of elected and appointed offices.  In 1985 he was Christensen Visiting Fellow at St. Catherine's College, University of Oxford and in 1996-1997 he was the Helen Cam Fellow, Girton College.  In that same academic year McCusker held concurrent appointments as the Visiting Senior Mellon Scholar in American History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow in the Fulbright Senior Scholar Program.  In the spring of 1997 he spent a month as Scholar in Residence at the Rockefeller Center, Bellagio, Italy, and in October 2001 he participated as the invited distinguished foreign scholar in the annual seminar organized by the graduate program in economics of the University of Helsinki, Finland.  
     McCusker is married to Ann Van Pelt. His wife and he share five children: Terrie F. Conner, Kenneth W. Florance, John J. McCusker III, Patrick W. McCusker and Dr. Margaret E. McCusker.

A list of his courses and related material is available online.

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