Sean J. McLaughlin is a historian and author whose work includes baseball, international diplomacy, and university history. He serves as director of Special Collections and Exhibits at Murray State University in Kentucky. His books investigate events through their wider settings, connecting the experiences of individuals with institutions, political decisions, and the communities in which those events are remembered.
His baseball book, Royal Treatment, focuses on Jackie Robinson’s season in Montreal before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers. Earlier publications include JFK and de Gaulle, a study of disagreements over Vietnam, and the collaborative centennial history The Finest Place We Know. These different subjects share an interest in how public narratives are shaped by the evidence and perspectives preserved around them.
Sean J. McLaughlin Books
| Book | Year | Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Treatment | 2026 | Description / Buy at Amazon |
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Baseball Books
Royal Treatment: Jackie Robinson, Montreal, and the Breaking of Baseball’s Color Barrier: McLaughlin examines Jackie Robinson’s 1946 season with the Montreal Royals, the year before he entered Major League Baseball. The account brings the city’s supporters and Robinson’s relationship with the community into the foreground. His success with the Royals accompanies an examination of postwar Montreal and the Black American expatriate experience, giving a familiar breakthrough a detailed Canadian setting. Published in 2026.
The Royals won the Junior World Series during Robinson’s season, giving Montreal a championship to accompany his individual achievements. McLaughlin considers the supportive reception that Robinson and his wife remembered, while placing that response within the city’s own history. The book also examines later homecomings and remembrance, extending the story beyond a single year to ask how a community preserved its connection with a player whose significance became international.
Other Books
JFK and de Gaulle: How America and France Failed in Vietnam, 1961–1963: McLaughlin investigates disagreements between John F. Kennedy and Charles de Gaulle over Vietnam between 1961 and 1963. French efforts to discourage deeper American involvement are placed beside the Kennedy administration’s responses. The study connects diplomatic decisions with assumptions about France and the French, examining how cultural attitudes and political judgment limited the exchange of experience between two allied governments. Published in 2019.
The narrative begins with the presidents’ 1961 summit and continues toward the American-backed change of regime in South Vietnam in 1963. McLaughlin examines the French attempt to apply experience from an earlier colonial conflict to a different government’s intervention. His account also traces older American stereotypes about France, showing how judgments formed outside immediate policy discussions could affect whether warnings were treated as useful information or dismissed.
The Finest Place We Know: A Centennial History of Murray State University, 1922–2022: McLaughlin joins Robert L Jackson and Sarah Marie Owens in tracing Murray State University’s first hundred years. Photographs from the Pogue Special Collections Library accompany accounts of people, buildings, and institutional milestones. The book follows the transformation from a small teachers college serving western Kentucky into a larger university, connecting educational ambitions with the experiences and achievements of its community. Published in 2022.
The institution began in one building after the First World War with a mission to improve teacher training in the Jackson Purchase region. Its subsequent history includes the student newspaper, founded in 1927, the appointment of Ernest T. Brooks as its first Black professor, and the leadership of Kala Stroup, the first woman to become president of a Kentucky university. Those milestones place growth beside changes in access and representation.