
Holger Droessler is a historian of 19th- and 20th-century U.S. history, with a special focus on imperialism, capitalism, and the Pacific Ocean. In his forthcoming book, Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa (Harvard University Press, Dec. 2021), he argues that the globalization of Samoa at the turn of the twentieth century was driven by a diverse group of working people on and off the islands. Currently, he is doing research for a second book, "War Workers," which tells the global story of non-citizen civilians working for the U.S. military from the Civil War to Iraq. He has published on a variety of topics, including labor history, Pacific history, environmental history, and global Hiphop. His teaching ranges from modern U.S. history in global perspective to the history of capitalism and environmental history.