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Applying to graduate school is something that likely only happens once in a lifetime, and so almost no one doing it has experience in the process. The goal of this post is to help demystify the process, so that you can best present your case. Rule no. 1: Don’t Go The first piece of advice […]
Prof. Patrick Iber [This version posted May 2026.] The special challenge of doing a prelims field in modern Latin American history is that you must cover a very broad range of issues in a broad range of countries from a broad range of perspectives. If you spread yourself too thin, you don’t have a lot […]
In January, after the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, I wrote a piece for Dissent emphasizing the tragic nature of the situation for Venezuelans: It is a sad fact that Venezuelans have, for years, been trapped between two rogue states, with many reduced to hoping that one could solve the problem of the other. Those of […]
In March 2025, shortly after Trump was inaugurated, I gave a talk at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay. They asked me to try to analyze Trump as contemporary history, so I gave it a shot. I tried to situated Trump in ways that mark the difference: post-consensus media, post-War on Terror, post-Cold War, […]
In fall 2025, I will be teaching a “FIG” course at the University of Wisconsin. These are seminars for first-year students that help them find a place in a large university. I thought that this would be fun FIG to teach, and I will soon find out. The design of the syllabus this year has […]
The Buenos Aires-based Nueva Sociedad periodically asks me to explain some aspect of U.S. politics for their Spanish-language audience. Most recently, I was asked for a piece on the Fighting Oligarchy tour led by Bernie Sanders. The Spanish final is at the link. I’ll post the English text below. After Donald Trump’s victory in the […]
Greg Grandin has a big new book about the history of the Americas, which I have reviewed for The New Republic. Greg can be such a great writer, and he has an ability to weave together histories of North and South America like few can. But I’m afraid that I found the book somewhat frustrating, […]
I wrote an article many years ago and it sat in the queue at the Journal of Cold War Studies for six years. Now it’s available, I guess, but I am not left feeling that this is a good system for disseminating knowledge. Although I would periodically update the article, I’m only nominally the same […]
As part of The New Republic’s “Does it hold up?” series, I’ve taken a look back at Eric Hobsbawm’s The Ages of Extremes. It was one of the first history books that I read when I began to consider a career in history (as it was recommended to me by my mentor, Mark Mancall). Furthermore, […]
I attended the DNC as a journalist, and wrote about the relationship between the Democratic party and its left movements for the Fall issue of Dissent (where I am now co-editor). (Here in Spanish.) The party has learned things but it has also asked for adaptations from its left, which was willing to make them […]
