Heather Salter
Professor of History
Heather Salter is Professor and Director of World History Programs at Northeastern University, Boston. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Duke University and, most recently, is the author of The Shanghai Agents: The Soviet Plot to Start a Revolution in Interwar China (Cambridge 2026). Her early travels overseas inspired a lifetime interest in people who fought against colonialism, which later translated to a career researching, writing, and teaching about it.
| CSSH Outstanding Teacher Award, 2026 2021 Northeastern University Humanities Center Fellowship 2020 Harvard University Weatherhead Center Funding for ‘The Anticolonial Transnational’ (with Erez Manela) 2019-2020 American Council of Learned Societies Year-long Fellowship |
Single Authored Books:
The Shanghai Agents: The Soviet Plot to Start a Revolution in Interwar China. Cambridge University Press Trade Series, in production, 2026.
World War One in Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Martial Races: The Military, Race, and Masculinity in British Imperial Culture, 1857-1914. Manchester University Press, 2004. (reissued in paperback in fall 2010)
Co-Edited Books:
With Erez Manela and Elisabeth Leake. Explaining International History. Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2027.
With Erez Manela. The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle Against Empire. Cambridge University Press, 2023.
With Michele Louro, Carolien Stolte, and Sana Tannoury-Karam. The League Against Imperialism: Lives and Afterlives. Leiden University Press, 2020.
Co-Authored Scholarly Books:
Co-authored with Trevor Getz. Empires and Colonies in the Modern World. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Co-Authored Textbooks:
With Craig Benjamin, Herb Ziegler, and Jerry Bentley. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. McGraw-Hill, Eighth edition 2025.
With Herb Ziegler and Jerry Bentley. Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past. Seventh edition 2020. Sixth edition 2014.
With Jerry Bentley and Herb Ziegler. Traditions and Encounters: Brief Version, 5th edition. McGraw-Hill, 2022. Fourth edition 2015. Third edition 2012. Second edition 2009. First edition 2006.
Refereed Articles (selected):
“The Long Shadow of Colonialism in the Creation of an Inter-Regional Arena,” Journal of Asian Studies 85:2 (May 2026).
“A Constant Lurking Danger? The Comintern’s Far Eastern Bureau, 1928-33,” Twentieth-Century Communism 24 (2023): 75-109.
“Consuls, Colonies, and the World: Low-Level Bureaucrats and the Machinery of Empire, c. 1880-1914,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 20:3 (2019).
“The Noulens Affair in East and Southeast Asia: International Communism in the Interwar Period,” Journal of American East Asian Relations 21 (2014): 394-414.
“The Local Was Global: The Singapore Mutiny of 1915,” Journal of World History 24:3 (August 2013): 539-576.
“Writing for Student Audiences: Pitfalls and Possibilities,” Special Issue of Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques (June, 2012): 109-122.
“Military Influence in Late Victorian and Edwardian Popular Media: The Case of Frederick Roberts,” Journal of Victorian Culture 8:2 (2003): 231-256.
Book Chapters (selected):
“World/Global History,” in Erez Manela, Elisabeth Leake, and Heather Salter, editors, Explaining International History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2027).
“Historical Fiction for Problem-Solving: Tatyana Moiseenko in Shanghai, 1930-35,” in Antoinette Burton, ed. Skeleton Keys of Empire: Experiments With and Against the Archive (Durham: Duke University Press, 2027).
“Postscript,” in Myles Gregory Osborne, Making Martial Races: Gender, Society, and Warfare in Africa (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2024).
“Introduction,” with Erez Manela, in The Anticolonial Transnational: Imaginaries, Mobilities, and Networks in the Struggle Against Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023).
“Introduction,” in Michele Louro, Heather Streets-Salter, Carolien Stolte, and Sana Tannoury-Karam, editors, The League Against Imperialism: Lives and Afterlives (Chicago and Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2020).
“Anti-Colonial Movements,” in Tony Ballantyne and Antoinette Burton, editors, World Histories from Below: Disruption and Dissent from 1750 to the Present (Bloomsbury, 2016).
“Becoming a World Historian: Training, Topics, and Goals,” in Douglas Northrup, editor, A Companion to World History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012): 45-62.
“World History at Washington State University,” in Patrick Manning, editor, Global Practices in World History (Marcus Weiner Publications, 2007).
“The Imperial Turn in The Classroom: Academic Discourses Meet Student Response,” in Antoinette Burton, editor. After the Imperial Turn (Duke University Press, 2003): 57-69.
“Identity in the Highland Regiments in the Nineteenth Century: Soldier, Region, Nation,” in Steve Murdoch and Andrew Mackillop, editors, The Scottish Military Experience, c. 1600-1800. (Brill Academic Press, 2002): 213-236.
| American Historical Association World History Association North American Conference on British Studies New England Regional World History Association |
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Education
Ph.D. Duke University 1998
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Contact
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Address
207 Meserve Hall
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
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HIST 5102: Theory & Methodology 2
HIST 5102: Theory & Methodology 2
Offers an advanced exploration of the theories and methods used by historians to develop students’ ability to understand and critique the work of other historians. Emphasis is on theories and methods in world history, such as comparative models, systemic approaches, and focus on interconnections. Explores what it means to have a local, national, or global perspective, and how world history fits in with other fields of historical scholarship. Required of all PhD students.
HIST 2311 – Colonialism & Imperialism
HIST 2311 - Colonialism & Imperialism
Examines the military, economic, political, and cultural expansion of world powers since the fifteenth century, and the ways in which colonized peoples were ruled. Why did colonialist countries feel the need to conquer and dominate, how did they do it, and why did they retreat on some fronts? How did people resist and cooperate with colonialism? How did colonialism affect national and cultural identities? Colonialism is examined as a global phenomenon and from a comparative perspective that looks at particular case studies. Also examines decolonization in the twentieth century.
