Electoral and Appointive Positions:
Research Associate, World History Center, since 2020
President, American Historical Association, 2016
Pioneer in World History, 2013 (World History Association)
Founding Director, World History Center, Univ. of Pittsburgh, 2008–2015
Vice President (Teaching), American Historical Association, 2004–2006
Founding Director, World History Center, Northeastern Univ., 1993–2004
J.S. Guggenheim Fellowship, 1986-87, Population Studies Center, U. of Pennsylvania
- PhD, University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1969
Education & Training
Selected Publications since 2009:
article. “Language Origins and Group Behavior: Proto-speech, Syntactic Language, and Spread of Language.” Mother Tongue, in press 2026.
article. “Networks in the World History of Human Evolution.” Asian Review of World Histories 13 (2025): 82–116.
article. “Households and communities: evolution in Homo sapiens.” The History of the Family 28, 4 (2023): 631–659.
article. “The Origins of Social Evolution: Language and Institutional Evolution.” Anthropos 118 (2023): 7–21.
chapter. “Counting and Categorizing African Migrants, 1980–2020: Global, Continental, and National Perspectives.” In Michiel de Haas and Ewout Frankema, eds., Migration in Africa: Shifting Matterns of Mobility from the 19th to the 21st Century, 355–375 (London and New York: Routledge, 2022).
chapter. “The ‘Second Slavery’ in Africa: Migration and Political Economy in the Nineteenth Century.” In Dale Tomich and Paul Lovejoy, eds. The Atlantic and Africa: The Second Slavery and Beyond, 203–215 (State University of New York Press, 2021).
chapter. “Africa: slavery and the world economy, 1700–1870.” Stephen Broadberry, and Kyoji Fukao, eds., Cambridge Economic History of the Modern World (202), 246–264.
book. A History of Humanity: The Evolution of the Human System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
book. Methods for Human History: Studying Social, Cultural, and Biological Evolution. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2020.
book. Migration in World History, 3rd ed., with Tiffany Trimmer. London: Routledge. (2020).
chapter. “Migration in World History.” Elli Heikkilä, ed., In Which Direction is Finland Evolving? The Dynamics of Mobility and Migration, 18–39. Turku, FI: Migration Institute of Finland, 2020.
book. Knowledge in Translation: Global Patterns of Scientific Exchange, 1000–1800 CE, co-edited with Abigail E. Owen. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.
book. Global Transformation in the Life Sciences, 1945–1980, co-edited with Mathew Savelli. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.
book. Global Scientific Practice in an Age of Revolution, co-edited with Daniel Rood. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016.
book. Migration History in World History: Multidisciplinary Approaches, co-edited with Jan Lucassen and Leo Lucassen.. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
book. The African Diaspora: A History through Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.
Research since 2015 centers on human evolution before 10,000 years ago, linking migration, language, biological evolution, social groups and networks, and early institutions. Also continuing study of slavery and African population, 1500–1900.
