Participant Info

First Name
Alys
Last Name
Beverton
Affiliation
Oxford Brookes University
Website URL
Keywords
Nineteenth-century U.S.-Mexican relations, transnational dimensions of the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras
Additional Contact Information

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I am a lecturer in American history at Oxford Brookes University. I have a BA in American Studies and an MPhil in American History and Literature, both from the University of Sussex. She completed her PhD in History at University College London in 2018. She worked in various teaching roles at UCL, Queen Mary University of London, and Cardiff University before joining Oxford Brookes in 2019.

My research focuses on the cultural dimensions of U.S. politics and foreign policymaking during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. I am particularly interested in understanding how sectional conflict between the North and South shaped public conversations about the United States’ standing and role in the wider Western Hemisphere. This is the topic of my current book project, tentatively titled ‘American Exceptionalism in Crisis: Faction, Anarchy, and Mexico in the U.S. Imagination during the Civil War Era.’

My research also informs my teaching. At Oxford Brookes, for example, I teach modules which examine traditional themes in U.S. history from continental and hemispheric perspectives. This includes my third year module ‘Land of the Free: The History of Slavery and Servitude in North America,’ which looks at various systems of unfree labour which existed across North America between the eighteenth and twentieth century. I also have an MA module on the history of the U.S.-Mexican border. In addition to this, I teach on modules which examine various aspects of U.S. society, politics, and international relations from the Revolution up to the end of the Cold War.

Recent Publications

Articles

Alys Beverton, “Transborder Capitalism and National Reconciliation: The American Press Reimagines U.S.-Mexican Relations after the Civil War,” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 21 no. 1 (2021), 40-61

Alys Beverton, “‘We Knew No North, No South’: U.S.-Mexican War Veterans and the Construction of Public Memory in the Post-Civil War United States, 1874-1897,” American Nineteenth Century History 17 no. 1 (2016), 1-22

Reviews

Alys Beverton, “Review of A. G. Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History,” Britain and the World 13 no. 1 (March 2020), 90-92

Alys Beverton, “Review of Paul Frymer, Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion,” Journal of American Studies 53 (May 2019), 568-569

Alys Beverton, “Review of John M. Belohlavek, Patriots, Prostitutes, and Spies: Women and the Mexican-American War,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50 (2018), 1004-1006

Alys Beverton, “Review of Paul D. Naish, Slavery and Silence: Latin America and the U.S. Slave Debate,” American Nineteenth Century History 19 no. 3 (2018), 320-321

Media Coverage
Country Focus
United Kingdom
Expertise by Geography
Latin America, United States
Expertise by Chronology
19th century
Expertise by Topic
American Civil War, Diplomacy, Emancipation, Race, Slavery