# Thomas J. McCormick

Thomas J. McCormick (March 6, 1933 – July 25, 2020) was an American academic who was emeritus professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the same place he got a Ph. D. where he succeeded William Appleman Williams and continued the groundbreaking work of the so-called Wisconsin School of diplomatic history. Indeed he is considered one of the core members of the Wisconsin School, along with Williams, Walter LaFeber, and Lloyd Gardner. He has used Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems approach to describe the dynamics of hegemony in US diplomatic history and also studied US corporatism.
McCormick taught at the Ohio University, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Wisconsin–Madison where he won the Wisconsin Student Association Award for Teaching Excellence (1992-1993). He was a Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow (1981), Distinguished Fulbright Lecturer at University College Dublin (1993-1994), and Vilas Associate (1996-1998). McCormick authored six books (see Works) and many influential articles. He often gave US guest lectures as well as several keynote addresses at worldwide conferences.
On December 4, 2023, the University of Wisconsin–Madison Senate Faculty passed a memorial resolution honoring the career and life of Professor Thomas J. McCormick.

## Works

* China Market: America's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1967.
* Creation of the American Empire: U.S. Diplomatic History. With Lloyd C. Gardner and Walter F. LaFeber. New York: Rand McNally & Co., 1973.
* America in Vietnam. With William A. Williams and Walter F. LaFeber. New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1988.
* America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990, revised second edition 1995.
* The Vietnam War: Four American Perspectives. With William Westmorland, George McGovern, and Edward Luttwack. Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1990.
* Behind the Throne: Servants of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898-1968. With Walter F. LaFeber (eds.) Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.

## Footnotes

* ↑ "McCormick, Thomas Joseph, Jr". Madison.com. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
* ↑ "History Department Emeriti/Emeritae". Archived from the original on 8 December 2010. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
* ↑ Crapol, Edward (February 1987). "Some Reflections on the Historiography of the Cold War". The History Teacher. 20 (2): 251–262. doi:10.2307/493031. JSTOR 493031.
* ↑ Morgan, James G. (2014). Into New Territory: American Historians and the Concept of American Imperialism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 172.
* ↑ Gale, Thomas. "Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism since 1450". Modern World-System Analysis. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
* ↑ Williams, William A. (1961). The Contours of American History. W. W. Norton Company. ISBN 9780393305616.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1963). "Insular Imperialism and the Open Door: The China Market and the Spanish-American War". Pacific Historical Review.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1971). "The State of American Diplomatic History". The State of American History.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1972). "Exporting the Social Question". New Perspectives in American History.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1982). "Drift or Mastery? The Corporatist Synthesis in American Diplomatic History". The Promise of American History.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1978). "Every System Needs A Center Sometime--An Essay on Hegemony and Modern American Foreign Policy". Redefining the Past.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1991). "Systemic Explanations". Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1992). "The 1890s as Watershed Decade". Safeguarding the Republic, 1890-1990.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1993). "Walking the Tightrope: Adolf A. Berle, Jr. and America's Journey from Social to Global Capitalism, 1933-1945". Behind the Throne: Servants of Power to Imperial Presidents, 1898-1968.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1994). "Creating the New Co-Prosperity Sphere: The United States, Japan and Asia, 1945-1954". Bulletin of Asian Studies. IV.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (2005). "American Hegemony and European Autonomy, 1989-2003: One Framework for Understanding the War in Iraq". The New American Empire.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1988). "American Hegemony and the Roots of the Vietnam War". Louis B. Sears Lectures.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1962). "The Spanish-American War and American China Policy". Association of Asian Studies.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1969). "The State of American Diplomatic History". Organization of American Historians.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1981). "Social History, Corporatism, and American Diplomatic History". Woodrow Wilson Center.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1983). "The Corporatist Synthesis in American Diplomatic History". Japanese Association of American Studies. Kyoto, Japan.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1993). "Glancing Backward, Looking Forward: A Retrospective on the World-System and its Prospects for the Next Quarter-Century". Japan Foundation's Center for Global Partnership and the American Center. Osaka, Japan.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (1996). "The Promise and Perils of American Hegemony". French Association of American Studies. Lyon, France.
* ↑ McCormick, Thomas (2000). "Modern Hegemony and the Rhythms of History". Japanese Association of Western History. Osaka, Japan.
* ↑ "Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison On the Death of Professor Emeritus Thomas J. McCormick" (PDF). University of Wisconsin-Madison. UW-Madison Faculty.