Dr. Alan Draper's major fields are Western Europe and American politics. He has written extensively on labor and politics as well as the American civil rights movement. His books include A Rope of Sand: The AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education, 1955-67 (Praeger, 1989) and A Conflict of Interests: Labor and the Civil Rights Movement in the South, 1955-68 (Cornell University Press, 1994) which was recognized as an "outstanding book on the subject of human rights in North America" by the Gustavus Myers Center. He is also a co-author along with Ira Katznelson and Mark Kesselman of The Politics of Power: A Critical Introduction to American Government (Wadsworth, 2006), now in its 5th edition; and of the forthcoming textbook, The Good Society: An Introduction to Comparative Politics (Longman, 2007) that he co-authored with his former colleague at St. Lawrence, Ansil Ramsay. In 1996 Dr. Draper received the Calvin Keene award from St. Lawrence University, which is "given to an outstanding faculty member in recognition of high standards of personal scholarship, effective teaching and moral concern." He is also on the editorial board of Labor History. When Dr. Draper is not engaged in scholarly pursuits, he can often be found handicapping and betting on racehorses.