Travis D. Boyce is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at San José State University. This interview is based on his new book, Steady and Measured: Benner C. Turner, A Black College President in the...
biography
The Author’s Corner with Catherine McNeur
Catherine McNeur is Associate Professor of History at Portland State University. This interview is based on her new book, Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science (Basic Books, 2023). JF: What led you to write Mischievous Creatures?...
The Author’s Corner with William C. Harris
William C. Harris is Professor Emeritus of History at North Carolina State University. This interview is based on his new book, Confederate Privateer: The Life of John Yates Beall (LSU Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Confederate Privateer? WH:...
The Author’s Corner with Stephen D. Engle
Stephen D. Engle is Professor of History and Associate Provost for Academic Personnel at Florida Atlantic University. This interview is based on his new book, In Pursuit of Justice: The Life of John Albion Andrew (University of Massachusetts Press, 2023)....
The Author’s Corner with Joseph Beilein Jr.
Joseph Beilein Jr. is Associate Professor of History at Penn State Behrend. This interview is based on his new book, A Man by Any Other Name: William Clarke Quantrill and the Search for American Manhood (University of Georgia Press, 2023)....
The Author’s Corner with Christian Goodwillie
Christian Goodwillie is Director and Curator of Special Collections at Hamilton College, Burke Library and Associate Editor of the Richard W. Couper Press. This interview is based on his new book, Richard McNemar: Frontier Heretic and Shaker Apostle (Indiana University...
A new series of ancient biographies offers yet another reason to love the genre
In the mid-second century BCE, Cato the Elder, Rome’s most conservative politician of his day, published his Origines, the first Roman history in Latin. Only fragments of the work survive, but we know that Cato’s history featured an unusual approach...
The Author’s Corner with Philip Levy
Philip Levy is Professor of History at the University of South Florida. This interview is based on his new book, The Permanent Resident: Excavations and Explorations of George Washington’s Life (University of Virginia Press, 2022). JF: What led you to...
The Author’s Corner with Elizabeth Leonard
Elizabeth Leonard is Gibson Professor of History, Emerita at Colby College. This interview is based on her new book, Benjamin Franklin Butler: A Noisy, Fearless Life (The University of North Carolina Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Benjamin Franklin...
The Author’s Corner with Olivier Zunz
Olivier Zunz is James Madison Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia. This interview is based on his new book, The Man Who Understood Democracy: The Life of Alexis de Tocqueville (Princeton University Press, 2022). JF: What led...
Christianity Today announces 2022 book awards
We are familiar with Christianity Today book awards here at Current. Our editor, Eric Miller, won the award in the History/Biography category in 2011 for Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch. Some good historians made the...
Robert Caro talks to journalism students about writing
Alex Shepherd recently accompanied some CUNY graduate students in journalism during a visit to the Robert Caro exhibition at the New York Historical Society. Here is his piece at The New Republic: You can sense Robert Caro’s disappointment after he...
Allen Guelzo on how to tell the story of Robert E. Lee
One of our generation’s best historians of the Civil War is the author of the forthcoming Robert E. Lee: A Life. In a recent piece at The New York Times, Allen Guelzo writes about the challenges of writing a biography...
Episode 90: The Gospel According to Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh was a celebrated aviator, the father of the baby abducted in the “crime of the century,” a Nazi sympathizer, and a believer in eugenics. He also carried a small New Testament with him as he entered the South...
The Author’s Corner with Christopher Grasso
Christopher Grasso is Professor of History at the College of William & Mary. This interview is based on his new book, Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy: The Civil Wars of John R. Kelso (Oxford University Press, 2021). JF: What led you...
Charles Marsh on writing a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Charles Marsh has published a long piece at The Other Journal in which he engages virtually every dimension of writing and publishing his book Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He touches on his choice of subjects, the art...
Episode 76: Howard Thurman: Theologian, Mystic, Activist
Howard Thurman was a mid-20th century theologian, writer, activist, and mystic who had a profound influence on the leaders of the Civil Rights movement. Thurman’s writings–especially his 1949 work Jesus and the Disinherited–provided an intellectual and spiritual guide to those trying to...
A reading group has read a biography of American president
This is a great story. Here is Southwest Journal (MN): Every few months for more than a decade, Lynnhurst residents Jan Emerson and Tama Pudvah have met up with Linden Hills resident Lynne Nyustek at a local restaurant to share...
The Author’s Corner with Chris Mortenson
Chris Mortenson is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Ouachita Baptist University. This interview is based on his new book, Politician in Uniform: General Lew Wallace and the Civil War (University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). JF: What...
The Author’s Corner with Randal Jelks
Randal Jelks is a Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies at The University of Kansas. This interview is based on his new book Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). JF:...