Professor Zeiler focuses on the history of U.S. foreign relations, with interests in economics, globalization, war, and sports.
Professor Zeiler teaches courses in American and international history, including U.S. diplomatic history from colonial times to the present. Some of the courses he teaches include "Global History of World War II" "U.S. Foreign Relations, 1865-1940," "U.S. Foreign Relations since 1941" and "America Through Baseball." Professor Zeiler was a recipient of the Teacher Recognition Award given by the Student Organization for Alumni Relations and has been recognized by Education Abroad for teaching a global seminar in France, as a service-learning fellow, and by the Boulder Faculty Assembly.
Professor Zeiler graduated from Emory University and then received his M.A. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has written or edited fourteen books, including monographs on U.S. trade history, globalization, World War II and military history, baseball, and Jackie Robinson. Titles include: Free Trade, Free World: America and the Advent of GATT (The University of North Carolina Press, 1999), Ambassadors in Pinstripes: The Spalding World Baseball Tour and the Birth of the American Empire (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), Annihilation: A Global Military History of World War II (Oxford University Press, 2010) and most recently, with CU Boulder colleague Martin Babicz, National Pastime: U.S. History Through Baseball (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017). A former president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), editor of the journal of record of the field, Diplomatic History, and editor of SHAFR’s bibliography, he has published extensively in U.S. foreign relations and the state of the field funded by numerous grants and fellowships. His current research, entitled “Capitalist Peace,” focuses on U.S. trade as a tool of diplomacy, peace, security, and human rights. Zeiler has received Fulbright fellowships for teaching and research.