Baruch College History Professor Mark Rice Wins Fulbright for Research in Peru

April 8, 2022

Baruch College Associate Professor Mark Rice has received a fellowship from the Fulbright US Scholar Program to conduct research in Peru. Rice, who teaches in the Department of History at Baruch’s Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, won the award for his project, “Seeking Roads to Progress: Highway Construction and Social Change in Peru, 1920-1960,” which investigates the social and political consequences of road construction and infrastructure development in 20th century Peru.

Rice’s field is Latin America and Caribbean history, with a focus on the Andean region and modern Peru in particular. He researches and writes about the history of tourism, travel, and infrastructure in the Andes. His work has been published by academic journals, collaborative projects, and the media, and he has presented research at academic conferences in the US, Latin America, and Europe.

His book Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru (University of North Carolina Press) examines the transformation of Machu Picchu into a global tourist attraction. Rice’s research emphasizes the important role travel and tourism has played in elevating Machu Picchu into a global symbol of Peru, and casts new light on the role that tourist-centered development plays in regional and national politics in the developing world. He plans to write another book using research from his Fulbright fellowship. A revised version of the book was recently published in Spanish.

Professor Rice also studies and teaches the history of material culture, economic history, and social history. His work at Baruch’s Weissman School of Arts and Sciences includes teaching introductory courses on global history and the history of Latin America as well as classes focused on US-Latin American relations, economic history, and the history of tourism.

He was recently quoted by The New York Times for his expertise on Machu Picchu for a story about new research on the site’s name. The new findings “dispel the myth that Machu Picchu was an eternal lost city,” Rice told the Times.  “Like most of the Andes, the site was, and continues to be, a dynamic place with a shifting history.”

Professor Rice completed his PhD at Stony Brook University and earned his BA in history from Cornell University.

The Fulbright award was originally announced in 2020, but his travel was delayed due to the global pandemic.

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