Thai S. Jones

Thai S. Jones

Research Interest

North America
Social History
Environment
Economic, Business, and Finance
1900-1945
Post-1945

Education

Ph.D. – Columbia University 2012
M.S. – Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism 2002
B.A. – Vassar College 1999

Interests and Research

Thai Jones studies radical social movements, New York City history, and Environmental History in the United States. He is the author of two books. The latest, More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy (Bloomsbury, 2014 [2012]), rediscovers a forgotten political crisis that roiled New York City in the early twentieth century. His first book, A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience (Free Press, 2004), explored his own family’s long history of political dissent against the backdrop of twentieth century social movements. He is currently working on Boomtown, a history of labor and the environment in Progressive Era gold-mining communities. Before becoming Lehman Curator, Jones was an assistant professor of history at the Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Program. Formerly a reporter for Newsday, his writings have appeared in a variety of national publications, ranging from the New York Times to The Nation, to the Occupied Wall Street Journal. 

Courses

  • Senior Thesis Seminar (Barnard College)
  • American Environment History (Barnard College)
  • The History of Capitalism in the Archives
  • Columbia University and Slavery
  • Democrats and Republicans
  • American Radicalism, 1877-1939

Affiliations

  • Book-review editor, International Labor and Working-Class History
  • Member, American Historical Association
  • Member, Social Science History Association
  • Member, Rare Book and Manuscript Section, Association of College and Research Libraries

Publications

Books

Boomtown: An Environmental and Labor history of Gold Mining (Harvard University Press, expected 2017)

More Powerful Than Dynamite: Radicals, Plutocrats, Progressives, and New York's Year of Anarchy(Bloomsbury, 2014 [2012])

A Radical Line: From the Labor Movement to the Weather Underground, One Family's Century of Conscience (Free Press, 2004)

Selected Articles

“Un-Athenian Affairs: I.F. Stone, M.I. Finley, and the Trial of Socrates,” in William V. Harris, ed., M.I. Finley and Politics (Columbia University Press, 2013)

“From Tsarist Russia to Zuccotti Park, The Paradox of Anarchism,” The Forward (2011)

“All Day, All Week (All Century), Occupy Wall Street,” The Occupied Wall Street Journal (2011)

“Two, Three, Many Columbias,” The New York Times (2008)