Michael Adas

Michael Adas (born 1943) is an American historian and author known for his contributions to Global History, the History of technology, and colonial and post-colonial studies. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Rutgers University, where he held the Abraham E. Voorhees Chair in History and served as a Board of Governors Chair.

He has written on Western dominance, anticolonialism, and the comparative History of warfare and development.

Biography He was born in 1943 to Harold A., and Elizabeth Rivard Adas. He developed an early interest in history through extensive childhood reading, particularly works exploring the impact of warfare on historical development. Though initially discouraged by the rote methods of history instruction in secondary school, he remained an avid reader of both historical fiction and nonfiction.

He attended Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI), where he graduated summa cum laude in 1965. During his undergraduate studies, Adas was deeply influenced by historian Ernest Breisach, whose courses on the Italian Renaissance underscored the intellectual and pedagogical challenges of historical scholarship. In 1996, he was named a Board of Governors Chair and the Abraham E. Voorhees Professor of History. in 1984 and the Warren Susman Teaching Award in 1987. He won the NJ-NEH Book Award in 1990, and the Dexter Prize in 1991 for Machines as the Measure of Men. In 1992, he won the Teacher of the Year Award. Adas also won the exclusive Toynbee Prize in 2012. and Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest and the Colonial Order garnered international attention and played a role in his rapid promotion to full professor at Rutgers University. He also collaborated with Peter Stearns and Stuart Schwartz on the widely used world history textbook Turbulent Passage: A Global History of the Twentieth Century, co-authoring eight editions. which explores how Western societies used technological superiority to justify and reinforce racial hierarchies and imperial ambitions.

His book received the New Jersey National Endowment for the Humanities Book Award in 1990 and the Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology in 1991.

His later work focused on the intersection of technology, culture, and empire, most notably in Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America's Civilizing Mission (2006), which examined how the United States employed technological rhetoric and power in its imperial pursuits. In 2017, Adas co-authored Everyman in Vietnam: A Soldier’s Journey into the Quagmire with Joseph Gilch. The book uses letters written by Gilch’s uncle, Private James Gilch, who was killed in action during the Vietnam War, to frame a broader narrative about American involvement and the human cost of the conflict.

Research and views Adas is known for his contributions to global history, the history of technology, and the study of colonialism and anticolonial resistance. His scholarship critically examines how Western powers justified imperialism through claims of technological and scientific superiority, while also exploring the responses of colonized societies. One of his works, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology , and Ideologies of Western Dominance (1989), argues that European colonialism was sustained by the belief in technological supremacy as a marker of civilizational advancement. This book, nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Adas’s microhistorical approach in Everyman in Vietnam (2018) shifts focus to individual experiences of war, using soldiers' letters to critique grand narratives of U.S. intervention.

A proponent of comparative and digital history, Adas advocates for preserving marginalized voices through archives while urging historians to address contemporary issues like climate change and migration through transnational lenses. Teacher of the Year Award, Rutgers College (1992) Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, Western Michigan University (2015–2016)

Selected bibliography

Books

Articles and essay