Overview

Professor Fibiger conducts research on twentieth-century international history, focusing primarily on political economy and international relations in Southeast Asia.

Professor Fibiger's first book is entitled Suharto's Cold War: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the World. It charts how the Indonesian dictator Suharto used the global Cold War to wage his own domestic and regional Cold Wars, marshaling international aid and investment to construct a counterrevolutionary dictatorship in Indonesia and promote authoritarian reaction elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Based on archival work in eight countries and four languages, including the central archival records of the Suharto regime itself, the book recasts Indonesian development and dictatorship as international and transnational phenomena. The book was published by Oxford University Press in 2023 and received the Michael H. Hunt Prize for International History from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations in 2024.

Professor Fibiger is currently at work on a new book project on the global dollar system.

In addition to his book projects, Professor Fibiger has published articles and book chapters on a diverse array of topics, including the origins of neoconservatism, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, the Mayaguez crisis of 1975, and the regional effects of the Vietnam War.