About the Authors

James West Davidson received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. from Yale University. An historian and full-time writer, he is author of The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth Century New England, Great Heart: the History of a Labrador Adventure (with John Rugge), and other books.

William E. Gienapp has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at the University of Wyoming before moving to Harvard University, where he is now Professor of History. In 1988, he received the Avery O. Craven Award for his book The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856. His essay, "The Antebellum Era", appeared in the Encyclopedia of Social History (1992).

Christine Leigh Heyrman is Associate Professor of History at the University of Delaware. She received a Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University and is the author of Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial Massachusetts, 1690-1750. Most recently, she has written Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (1997, Knopf), a book about the evolution of religious culture in the Southern U.S.

Mark H. Lytle received his Ph.D. from Yale University and is Professor of History and Environmental Studies as well as Chair of the American Studies Program at Bard College. He is also Director of the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Bard. His publications include The Origins of the Iranian-American Alliance, 1941-1953, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (with James West Davidson) and, most recently, "An Environmental Approach to American Diplomatic History" in Diplomatic History. He is at work on The Uncivil War: America in the Vietnam Era.

Michael B. Stoff is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. The recipient of a Ph.D. from Yale University, he has received many teaching awards, most recently the Friars' Centennial Teaching Excellence Award (1996). He is the author of Oil, War, and American Security: The Search for a National Policy on Foreign Oil, 1941-1947 and co-editor (with Jonathan Fanton and R. Hal Williams) of The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age.