Peter Coclanis works primarily in economic and business history. Most of his earlier research focused on the American South in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but in recent years he has been working on other areas and time periods as well, particularly on Southeast Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His current project is on the creation of integrated world markets for tropical and semi-tropical commodities, with a special emphasis on rice. This project has taken him to archives (and rice paddies) all over the world.