Department of History 500 Main Hall West Chester, Pennsylvania 19383	(610) 436-2201 http://www.wcupa.edu/

Main Teaching Interests:

Modern African history and the history of industrialization. My courses provide comparative studies of industrialized and non-industrialized societies, and examine the roots of modern belief systems such as nationalism, capitalism, socialism, democracy, and science.

My research focuses on the history of labor, wealth, and technology. The main branch of my research is concentrated in French West Africa, but I devote significant effort to the study of these concepts in other geographic settings, including Chester County. I recently completed a book on Africans who worked for a colonial-era railroad in Senegal and Mali, and a book on the history of industrialization of West Chester. Currently, I am testing a model of globalization that offers a way to understand its role in history, and researching the impact of railroad construction in West Chester.

Recent Publications:

"Constructing History with Computers" in Dennis A. Trinkle, History in the Electronic Age: Historians and Computers (M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1998).

Review of Industrialization and the British Colonial State: West Africa 1939-1951 by L. J. Butler (London & Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1997), in Journal of African History, vol. 39, no. 1 (1998), 166.

"Fact and Fiction in God's Bit of Wood" in Research in African Literatures, vol. 31, no. 2 (Summer 2000).

Colonial Labor in the Industrial World: the African Workers of the Chemin de Fer Dakar-Niger (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002).

Made in West Chester: the History of Industry in West Chester, 1867-1939
(West Chester, PA: 2003).

"Dakar," "Senegal: Colonial Period: Railways and Colonization" and "Mali: Colonial Period: Economy, Society and Religion" in Kevin Shillington, editor, Encyclopedia of Africa History (London: Fitzroy & Dearborn, forthcoming).

Web Sites:

The "Riggtown History Homepage," located at http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his480/riggtown.htm, offers sources and reports on the history of West Chester, Pennsylvania, and surroundings.

The "Archives of French West Africa," located at http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his311/archives/arcindex.htm, offers sources for the history of colonial and independent francophone West Africa.

Other teaching web sites.