Email: sextonj@missouri.edu

Personal Biography

A Midwesterner by birth, Jay Sexton first came to Oxford in 1998, where he eventually did his graduate work, before being named Fellow at Corpus in 2004. He had a great run at Corpus, which remains close to his heart. He and his partner Julie Wood naturalized as British in 2012, before returning to their Midwestern roots in 2016 when Sexton was named Rich and Nancy Kinder Chair of Constitutional Democracy at the University of Missouri. A former deputy director and director of the Rothermere American Institute, look for Sexton when he returns to Oxford each March and July with Atlantic history students from Missouri.

Research 

Sexton specializes in the political and economic history of the nineteenth century, especially the era of the American Civil War. His research situates the United States in its international context, particularly as it related to the dominant global structure of the era, the British Empire. He spends much of his time working with colleagues from around the world on collaborative projects and multi-author volumes.

Publications

  • The Cambridge History of America and the World, Volume 2, co-edited with Kristin Hoganson (2021).
  • Crossing Empires: Taking U.S. History into Transimperial Terrain, co-edited with Kristin Hoganson (2020).
  • A Nation Forged by Crisis: A New American History (2018).
  • The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America (2011).
  • The Global Lincoln, co-edited with Richard Carwardine (2011).
  • Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and American Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, 1837-1873 (2005).