Oliver Charbonneau

Dr. Oliver Charbonneau is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Glasgow, specializing in the history of the United States empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His research focuses on American colonialism in Southeast Asia and North America, with an emphasis on militarized violence, labor systems, and imperial knowledge production. Before joining Glasgow in 2019, he taught at Huron University College, King’s University College, and Brock University in Canada.

• PhD in History, University of Western Ontario (2016)

His research explores the global dimensions of U.S. imperialism through transimperial frameworks. Key projects include Civilizational Imperatives, which examines U.S. rule in the Southern Philippines, and The Gospel of Work and Money, a co-edited volume analyzing industrial education’s role in colonial capitalist modernity. He is currently working on Mohonk: The Progressive Origins of American Empire, a global microhistory linking a New York hotel to imperial pedagogy.

Charbonneau’s publications span journals like Diplomatic History, Modern American History, and Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, with recurring themes of racialization, transpacific mobility, and the intersections of labor, violence, and education in imperial contexts.

• 2022 Stuart L. Bernath Lecture Prize
• Finalist for Philippine National Book Award (2021)
• Finalist for Gintong Aklat Award (2021)

He supervises graduate research on global and imperial dimensions of U.S. history, particularly within his focus period (1860s–1930s). Grants include funding from Georgetown University in Qatar for interdisciplinary research on industrial education’s global legacies.