Neil Smith, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, The Graduate Center and Hunter College, works on the intersection between social theory, spatial theory, and history. As Director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, and with the support of a $900,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, he has undertaken a research project called "Rethinking Area Studies," which entails reviewing the results of a new round of Ford 1990s funding of area studies initiatives as well as recent developments in the field in order to propose a new outlook for area studies. Professor Smith also has several books in various stages of development. Among them is the recently completed American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization (University of California Press) which looks at the geographical constitution of the American Empire; it will be followed by a related book, The Endgame of Globalization (Routledge), which sees the war in Iraq and subsequent occupation as the intended finale of a much larger globalization strategy. In addition, he is working at the urban scale on gentrification, focusing on New York as well as the global situation.
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/pcp/