About Thomas M. Truxes

In the late 1960s, with an MBA in hand and a bright business career before him, Tom Truxes (pronounced as in cars and “trucks”) shifted gears and embarked on his lifelong career as a teacher and historian. This meant starting over. But breakthrough research on Ireland’s neglected role in the early modern Atlantic economy led to doctoral studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and the first of his six books. It led as well to a professorship in Irish Studies and History at New York University where he teaches courses on early modern Ireland, the Atlantic economy, and the history of world trade. Truxes’ emphasis is always on history as “story,” that is, the stories of men and women in past centuries, folks with whom we share a common humanity but who faced challenges very different from our own. His goal is to bring their stories to as wide an audience as possible. Whether they were Newfoundland fisherman in the cold 17th-century North Atlantic, expatriate Irish men and women in 18th-century Bordeaux, or colonial New Yorkers defying British authority on the eve of the American Revolution, the common theme of Truxes’ work is the impact of trade and commerce on the lives of ordinary people. The rich detail of these lives resides deep in archival sources. This is where the historian takes on the role of detective reconstructing the past from scraps of evidence.