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Steven Driver

Steven’s project offers the first focused investigation of the role played by religion in US international history during the occupation era c.1912-1934, with an emphasis on the nature of the religious dialogue between the occupier and the occupied in Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Despite perennial interest in the period, religion has either appeared as a footnote in discussion or has been confined to limited studies of key figures such as Sandino in Nicaragua. 

These U.S. interventions took place at a time when the providential rhetoric of Manifest Destiny was on the wane and an ambitious project of economic paternalism was beginning to shape U.S. Foreign Policy.  This was a formative stage in the diplomacy of a growing superpower and its impact would resonate during World War II and beyond.  Despite taking a broadly secular approach to the occupied, ignoring religiopolitical complexities on the ground, the U.S. contributed to ideological and religious shifts in ways that they could not have anticipated.   
 

PhD

PhD Supervisors: Alex Goodall and David Sim 
 
Working Title: Destiny and Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Policy and Religion during the Occupation Era c.1912-1934 

Publications

  • Driver, Steven. "Absence and Myopia in A-Level Coursework: The Intellectual Revolution against Historical Neglect Begins in the Classroom." Teaching History 174 (2019): 62-69. 
  • Driver, Steven. "Reimagining a Rebel: How Introducing Cultural and Intellectual History Improves Critical Analysis in the Classroom." Teaching History 179 (2020): 54-64. 

Notable Awards

  • The BAAS John D Lees Award (American Political Studies) 2020 
  • University of Oxford Inspirational Teachers Award