Douglas S. Harvey

Douglas S. Harvey spent his early life working in the building trades, the oil field, and in farming, traveling throughout much of North America. He embarked on his current career as a historian (and part-time folk musician) in 1990, receiving a doctorate from the University of Kansas.

His interest in critical imperial studies dates back to his roots on the High Plains of North America. It was hard, he asserts, not to see the isolated towns of that region as non-native manifestations of imperial interests. Questioning how deep this "non-native-ness" ran eventually led to "The Theatre of Empire," of which an earlier version was his doctoral dissertation. National and cultural mythologies are made up of assumptions, and the dissertation's subtitle, "A History of Assumptions," captures the nature of this research.

He is currently nurturing an "urban homestead" in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife, Kathleen Hoff (who is an artist), as well as writing, playing music, and teaching history courses in the Kansas City area.