James McPherson

James M. McPherson is one of the nation's most renowned historians of the American Civil War era. His award-winning career has spanned four decades, and includes such highly prestigious honors as Pulitzer Prize, two Lincoln Prizes, the NEH's Jefferson Lectureship in the Humanities, and a term as the president of the American Historical Association.

McPherson is George Henry Davis ’86 Professor of American History emeritus at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1962. He received his PhD in 1963 from Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with C. Vann Woodward.

He has written more than 15 books and edited another dozen, mostly on the era of the American Civil War and Reconstruction, including Battle Cry Freedom: The Civil War Era, which won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1989. The Washington Post, much like many other reviewers, hailed it as the "finest single volume on the war and its background."

He is also the author of numerous other acclaimed books, including the New York Times best-seller Crossroads of Freedom, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War.

Scanning the social, military, economic, and political events that became entwined in the events of the Civil War, McPherson shares with audiences a riveting, thoroughly researched account of this momentous time in American history. His masterful, instructive tour of the politics, personalities, and campaigns that defined the War Between the States will inform and enlighten, as will his insights into how what happened over 150 years ago -- the "second American Revolution" -- still impacts the American landscape today.