Smith's curiosity about why such critical study of space and place came so late to the discipline of geography lead to his study of early 20th-century geographer Isaiah Bowman and the book "American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization" (2003), which traced America's rise to global power through geographical ignorance. The book won several awards, including the Henry Adams Prize of the Society for History in the Federal Government. Smith's critique of American-led, capitalist neoliberalism was further developed in "The Endgame of Globalization" (2005).