Kyle Burke
Phone Number
607-431-4883
Department
History
Areas of Expertise

modern US and global history; war and society; radicalism and political violence

Education
Ph.D., Northwestern University

Kyle Burke

Associate Professor of History, Department Chair, and Peace & Conflict Studies Coordinator

An award-winning teacher, Professor Burke offers classes across the spectrum of modern US and global history. They include: American Political History, 20th Century America, the United States since 1968, Women in American History, the Global Cold War, American Empire, the Vietnam War, the History of US Foreign Relations as well as introductory surveys of US history and global history. Beyond the classroom, he enjoys advising student research and teaching programs.

Professor Burke’s scholarship examines the interwoven histories of war, political violence, and radicalism in the United States and the wider world. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in Diplomatic History, Jacobin, The Times Literarary Supplement, The Pacific Historical Review, Terrorism and Political Violence, H-War, and H-Diplo.

His first book, Revolutionaries for the Right: Anticommunist Internationalism and Paramilitary Warfare in the Cold War, was published by University of North Carolina Press in June 2018. Utilizing previously untapped sources from four continents, it chronicles the rise and fall of an international network of right-wing organizations that supported anticommunist guerrillas in the global south from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Professor Burke is currently at work on a new book tentatively titled White Power Worldwide. It explores the creation and mobilization of a trans-Atlantic white supremacist movement since the 1970s. Tacking between the United States and Europe, it shows how white power activists raised money, circulated texts, and targeted common enemies through similar modes of violence. Although white power activists said they were fighting globalization—and are often portrayed as such—they too harnessed new technologies and transnational flows of people, ideas, and capital. Therefore, White Power Worldwide argues they must be understood not as opponents of globalization but as beneficiaries. A chapter that surveys this story was published in Global White Nationalism: From Apartheid to Trump from Manchester University Press.

His research has been supported with fellowships from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Buffett Institute for Global Studies.

Recent courses taught:

  • The United States and the Global Cold War
  • Global History since 1750
  • 20th Century US History
  • The United States since 1968
  • The Vietnam War
  • American Empire
  • The History of US Foreign Relations
  • Political Extremism in the 20th Century
  • US-Latin American Relations
  • American Political History
  • African American History
  • The History of US Foreign Relations
  • The Global Civil Rights Movement
  • Historical Methods

Distinctions (awards, fellowships, and grants):

  • Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Fellowship
  • Buffett Institute for Global Studies Fellowship

Selected publications: