Rails, Mines, and Progress: Seven American Promoters in Mexico
David Mitchell Pletcher ((1920-06-14)June 14, 1920 – (2004-02-22)February 22, 2004) was an American historian, considered an expert in his field.[3][4] He was a history professor at Indiana University from 1965 to 1990.[2]
Pletcher's initial academic post was as a history instructor at the University of Iowa, from 1944 to 1946. He served as an associate professor, first at Knox College from 1946 to 1956, then at Hamline University from 1956 to 1965. In 1965 he joined Indiana University as a full professor; he remained there until his retirement in 1990.[1]
Pletcher served as an advisor for the 1999 PBSdocumentaryU.S.-Mexican War (1846–1848).[5]
In 1957, the American Historical Association awarded Pletcher the Albert J. Beveridge Award, given for the best book in English on the history of the United States, Latin America, or Canada from 1492 to the present, for his book Rails, Mines, and Progress: Seven American Promoters in Mexico.[8] In 1961, he received a McKnight Foundation Award.[1]
Notable works
Pletcher, David M. (1958). Rails, Mines, and Progress: Seven American Promoters in Mexico, 1867-1911. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. OCLC237975.
——— (1962). The Awkward Years; American Foreign Relations under Garfield and Arthur. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. OCLC558705173.
——— (1998). The Diplomacy of Trade and Investment: American Economic Expansion in the Hemisphere, 1865-1900. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. ISBN9780826211279.
——— (2001). The Diplomacy of Involvement: American Economic Expansion Across the Pacific, 1784-1900. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. ISBN9780826213150.