Mark Lawrence is associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and, from 2006 to 2008, Cassius Marcellus Clay Fellow at Yale University. He is author of Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Committment to War in Vietnam (University of California Press, 2005), winner of the American Historical Association's Paul Birdsall and George Louis Beer prizes for 2006. He is now working on a study of U.S. policymaking toward the Third World during the 1960s. His other projects include a co-edited volume of essays (with Fredrik Logevall) entitled The First Vietnam War: Colonial Conflict and Cold War Crisis (Harvard University Press, 2007). Lawrence has also published several articles and chapters on U.S. policymaking toward Asia and Latin America. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale University. In 2004, he won the President's Associates Award for Teaching Excellence from the University of Texas.