Curated category
21st-century American historians
- Elizabeth D. LeonardElizabeth D. Leonard once appeared in a C-SPAN special about the history of Augusta, Maine. It was an unexpected pairing, since her scholarly work centers on…
- James M. McPhersonJames M. McPherson once said that a historian's job is to cut through the myths a people tell about itself, and get closer to reality.
- Don H. DoyleDon Harrison Doyle is an American historian who specializes in Civil War history and historiography. He is best known for two books.
- Retha WarnickeRetha Warnicke believes that Anne Boleyn was not born in 1501, as most historians long assumed, but in the summer of 1507.
- Joan WaughJoan Waugh has built an academic career around one of American history's most contested figures: Ulysses Grant. She is an American historian who studies the…
- David A. BellDavid Avrom Bell was born in New York City in 1961, into a family that thought seriously about ideas for a living. His father was the sociologist Daniel Bell.
- Seymour DrescherSeymour Drescher argued, in his 1977 book Econocide, that Britain did not end the slave trade because it had become unprofitable.
- Kenneth PomeranzKenneth Pomeranz asked a question that historians had been avoiding for centuries: why did industrialization happen in Europe, and not in China?
- Gabor BorittGabor Boritt was born in 1940 to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary. The Nazis forced his family into a single room within a hospital on the edge of the…
- John F. MarszalekJohn F. Marszalek has spent a career doing what most historians only dream of: getting close enough to a great figure that his own name becomes inseparable…
- Daniel YerginDaniel Howard Yergin was born on the 6th of February 1947 in Los Angeles, California, and by the time he finished his fourth book, he had written what would…
- George Dyson (science historian)George Dyson was born on the 26th of March 1953 into a family of remarkable minds. His father was the theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson.
- Gary W. GallagherGary W. Gallagher was born on the 8th of October 1950. He built his career on a premise that sits uncomfortably in American culture.
- David Christian (historian)David Gilbert Christian was born on the 30th of June, 1946, in Brooklyn, New York, to British and American parents. He grew up between Nigeria and England…
- Stephen GreenblattStephen Greenblatt once recalled the moment he realized the term "New Historicism" had taken on a life of its own. When he heard that American universities…
- Gerald HoltonGerald James Holton was born on the 23rd of May 1922, in Berlin, Germany. He grew up in a Jewish family where his father worked as an attorney specializing…
- Victor Davis HansonVictor Davis Hanson grew up on a farm outside Selma, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, on land his family had worked since the 1870s.
- Claudia GoldinClaudia Dale Goldin was born in the Bronx, New York City on the 14th of May 1946. Her father Leon Goldin worked as a data processing manager at Burlington…
- Melissa DellMelissa Dell set a state record in the 3000-meter race in high school, despite eyesight so poor it made completing races a challenge.
- David W. BlightDavid William Blight was born on the 21st of March 1949, in Flint, Michigan, where his family lived in a mobile home park.
- Donald L. MillerDonald L. Miller has spent decades putting readers inside some of the most consequential moments in American and world history, from the bombers over Nazi…
- Fergus BordewichFergus M. Bordewich was born on the 1st of November, 1947, in New York City, into a world he would spend a lifetime trying to understand.
- Eric FonerEric Foner, born on the 7th of February 1943 in New York City, is the historian that college professors reach for most often.
- Edward Jay EpsteinEdward Jay Epstein died in his Manhattan apartment on the 9th of January 2024, at 88 years old, from COVID-19. He had spent more than half a century making…
- Clifford AndoClifford Ando was born in 1969, and by the time he reached Princeton University as an undergraduate, he was already drawn to a world two millennia removed…
- Joel WhitburnJoel Carver Whitburn was born on the 29th of November 1939 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, and by the time he died on the 14th of June 2022, he had done something…
- Roger D. LauniusRoger D. Launius is an American historian, born on the 15th of May 1954, whose specialty is the history of air and space.
- Douglas BrinkleyDouglas Brinkley was born on the 14th of December 1960 in Atlanta, Georgia, and today holds the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities at Rice…