Christon I. Archer, (Ph.D. in Latin American History, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1971; Doctor of Letters (honoris causa), La Trobe University), 1996, is Professor of History at the University of Calgary. He has written extensively on the army of New Spain and on the Mexican Wars of Independence. His works include the Army in Bourbon Mexico (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1977), that won the Bolton Prize of the Conference of Latin American History; and the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association Prize. He is currently working on the royalist army and insurgency and counterinsurgency in New Spain during the struggle for independence and on the defense of the Mexican nation, 1821-1867. Archer’s recent edited books are The Wars of Independence in Spanish America. (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 2000); and The Birth of Modern Mexico, 1780-1824 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2003. On the post-independence period, his most recent studies include “Fashioning a New Nation,” in Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley, The Oxford History of Mexico (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 301-337. In general Military History, Archer with John Ferris, Holger Herwig, and Tim Travers, published World History of Warfare (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002) 627 pages, that was adopted by the History Book Club. Archer’s second major research field concerns Spanish Maritime History and Pacific Ocean exploration in the eighteenth century. His works include “Whose Scourge? Smallpox Epidemics on the Northwest Coast,” in Alan Frost and Jane Samson, eds., Pacific Empires: Essays in Honor of Glyndwr Williams (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999), 165-191; His article, “Cannibalism in the early History of the northwest Coast: Enduring Myths and Neglected Realities,” Canadian Historical review LXI, 4, 1980, 453-479, won the Annual Prize of the Canadian Historical Association.

In total, Archer has published about seventy scholarly articles and book chapters. He has a forthcoming book for 2005-06, La Mordida de la Hidra: El Ejército de Nueva España en la Guerra de Independencia (Zamora: El Colegio de Michoacán. Archer’s current ongoing major research projects include books on Spanish exploration and presence in the North Pacific in the eighteenth century, on the Royalist Army and Counterinsurgency in New Spain, 1810-1825; and on the Wars of Independence in Latin America. He holds a three-year SSHRC Research Grant for a new project examining the Mexican military following the Independence epoch up to 1867.