James M. McPherson is an American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

 for Battle Cry of Freedom

Battle Cry of Freedom (book)

Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the American Civil War and its causes published in 1988 by James M. McPherson. Writing for The New York Times, historian Hugh Brogan described it as "...the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across...

, his most famous book. He was the president of the American Historical Association

American Historical Association

The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...

 in 2003, and is a member of the editorial board of Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

.

Born in Valley City

Valley City, North Dakota

As of the census of 2000, there were 6,826 people, 2,996 households, and 1,668 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,062.5 per square mile . There were 3,250 housing units at an average density of 982.0 per square mile...

, North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

, he graduated from St. Peter High School, and he received his Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 at Gustavus Adolphus College

Gustavus Adolphus College

Gustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in St. Peter, Minnesota, United States. A coeducational, four-year, residential institution, it was founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans. To this day the school is firmly...

 (St. Peter

St. Peter, Minnesota

St. Peter is a city in Nicollet County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 11,196 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Nicollet County.St...

, Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

) in 1958 (from which he graduated magna cum laude), and his Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 at Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

 in 1963. Currently he resides in Princeton

Princeton, New Jersey

Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, and is married with one child.

Scholarship

McPherson's works include The Struggle for Equality, awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1965. In 1989, he published his Pulitzer-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom. And in 1998 another book, For Cause and Comrades, received the Lincoln Prize

Lincoln Prize

The Lincoln Prize, endowed by Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman and administered by the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, has been awarded annually since 1991 for the best non-fiction historical work of the year on the American Civil War. It is named for U.S...

. In 2002 he published both a scholarly book, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862, and a history of the Civil War for children, Fields of Fury. Unlike many other historians, he has a reputation of trying to make history accessible to the public. Most of his works are marketed to popular audiences and his book Battle Cry of Freedom has long been a popular one-volume general history of the Civil War. In 2009, he was the co-winner of the Lincoln Prize for Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief.

McPherson was named the 2000 Jefferson Lecture

Jefferson Lecture

The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities . According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities."-History of...

r in the Humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 (replacing the first selection, President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

, who declined the honor in the face of criticism from scholars and political conservatives). In making the announcement of McPherson's selection, NEH Chairman William R. Ferris

William R. Ferris

William Reynolds Ferris is an American author and scholar and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities...

 said:

James M. McPherson has helped millions of Americans better understand the meaning and legacy of the American Civil War. By establishing the highest standards for scholarship and public education about the Civil War and by providing leadership in the movement to protect the nation's battlefields, he has made an exceptional contribution to historical awareness in America.

In 2007, he was awarded the $100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award

Pritzker Military Library Literature Award

Pritzker Military Library Literature Award is a literary award given annually by the Pritzker Military Library. It is a lifetime achievement award for military writing. The prize is valued at $100,000 making it one of the richest literary prizes in the world. The inaugural year was...

 for lifetime achievement in military history--the first person to be awarded the prize. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

 in 2009.

One of his most recent books is This Mighty Scourge, a series of essays about the Civil War. One essay describes the huge difficulty of negotiation when regime change is a war aim on either side of a conflict. “For at least the past two centuries, nations have usually found it harder to end a war than to start one. Americans learned that bitter lesson in Vietnam, and apparently having forgotten it, we’re forced to learn it all over again in Iraq.” One of McPherson’s examples is the Civil War in which both the North and the South sought regime change. It took four years to end that conflict.

Politics and advocacy

McPherson is known for his outspokenness on contemporary issues and his activism, such as his work on behalf of the preservation of Civil War battlefields. As president in 1993-1994 of Protect Historic America, he lobbied against the construction of a commercial theme park at the Manassas battlefield. He has also served on the boards of the Civil War Trust and the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites, and on the Civil War Sites Advisory Committee.

McPherson signed a May 18, 2009 petition asking President Obama not to lay a wreath at the Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemetery. The petition stated:

Democracy Now interview and UDC boycott

McPherson's political views have led to charges of bias

Bias

Bias is an inclination to present or hold a partial perspective at the expense of alternatives. Bias can come in many forms.-In judgement and decision making:...

 against him and at least one boycott

Boycott

A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...

 of his books. In 1999, McPherson drew the ire of Confederate heritage groups when he and Ed Sebesta had an interview with Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is an American progressive broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist, investigative reporter and author. Goodman is the host of Democracy Now!, an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and the internet.-Early life:Goodman was born in Bay Shore, New York...

 and Juan Gonzalez

Juan Gonzalez (journalist)

Juan González is an American progressive broadcast journalist and investigative reporter. He has also been a columnist for the New York Daily News since 1987...

 on the left wing Pacifica Radio

Pacifica Radio

Pacifica Radio is the oldest public radio network in the United States. It is a group of five independently operated, non-commercial, listener-supported radio stations that is known for its progressive/liberal political orientation. It is also a program service supplying over 100 affiliated...

 network's Democracy Now!

Democracy Now!

Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...

 program. The topic of the interview was then-candidate George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

's financial support of the Museum of the Confederacy and its Lone Star Ball fundraising event, as well as his views of the historical Confederacy. During the interview, guest Ed Sebesta discussed the Sons of Confederate Veterans

Sons of Confederate Veterans

Sons of Confederate Veterans is an American national heritage organization with members in all fifty states and in almost a dozen countries in Europe, Australia and South America...

 and United Daughters of the Confederacy

United Daughters of the Confederacy

The United Daughters of the Confederacy is a women's heritage association dedicated to honoring the memory of those who served in the military and died in service to the Confederate States of America . UDC began as the National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy, organized in 1894 by...

, which Sebesta argued were created with the motive of celebrating the Confederacy, including the use of slavery in the Confederate economy, and white supremacy. The interview with McPherson followed in another segment, where McPherson stated:

"I think, I agree a 100% with Ed Sebesta about the motives or the hidden agenda, not too, not too deeply hidden I think of such groups as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. They are dedicated to celebrating the Confederacy and rather thinly veiled support for white supremacy. And I think that also is the again not very deeply hidden agenda of the Confederate flag issue in several southern states."

In the same interview, McPherson clarified his position that the Museum of the Confederacy

Museum of the Confederacy

The Museum of the Confederacy is located in Richmond, Virginia. The museum includes the former White House of the Confederacy and maintains a comprehensive collection of artifacts, manuscripts, Confederate imprints , and photographs from the Confederate States of America and the American Civil War...

 in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 had changed its orientation, from its original purpose of celebrating the Confederacy:

"[O]ver time, and especially in the last decade or two, it has become a much more professional, research-oriented, professional exhibit-oriented facility."

He continued:

"I think the motives of people who fundraise money for the museum, and who attend balls in period costume and so on, probably range from celebratory to genuinely historical. So there is a dimension to that. But I do think that the Museum of Confederacy is now a research and professional museum in the same category as other highly regarded museums around the country."

McPherson said,

"If I implied that all UDC chapters or SCV chapters or anyone who belongs to those is promoting a white-supremacist agenda, that's not what I meant to say. What I meant to say is that some of these people have a hidden agenda of white supremacy, (which) they might not even recognize they're involved in"

Members of the UDC were similarly offended by these comments. The Virginia UDC responded in their newsletter that "Far from apologizing for his baseless accusations of racism, (McPherson) has now added ignorance to the list of sins that we have committed." The group has not announced an end to their boycott.http://users.erols.com/va-udc/mcpherson.html

Works

• The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964.
• The Negro's Civil War: How American Negroes Felt and Acted During the War for the Union. New York: Pantheon Books, 1965.
• Marching Toward Freedom: The Negro in the Civil War, 1861-1865. New York: Knopf, 1968.
• The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975 (1st ed.); 1995 (2nd ed., with a new preface by the author).
• Ordeal by Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Knopf, 1982 (1st ed.); New York: McGraw-Hill, c1992 (2nd ed.); c2001 (3rd ed.), c2009 (4th ed.).
• Lincoln and the Strategy of Unconditional Surrender. Gettysburg, PA: Gettysburg College, 1984.
• How Lincoln Won the War with Metaphors. Fort Wayne, IN: Louis A. Warren Lincoln Library and Museum, 1985.
• Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
  Battle Cry of Freedom (book)
  Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era is a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the American Civil War and its causes published in 1988 by James M. McPherson. Writing for The New York Times, historian Hugh Brogan described it as "...the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across...
  
  . New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 (1st ed.); 2003 (Illustrated ed.).
• Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• What They Fought For, 1861-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1994.
• Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Is Blood Thicker than Water?: Crises of Nationalism in the Modern World. Toronto: Vintage Canada, c1998.
• Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• The Boys in Blue and Gray. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2002.
• Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg. New York: Crown Journeys, 2003.
• This Mighty Scourge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief, 2008.
• Abraham Lincoln. Oxford University Press, 2009.

As editor or contributor

• Blacks in America: Bibliographical Essays, by James M. McPherson and others. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1971.
• Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, edited by J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
• Battle Chronicles of the Civil War, James McPherson, editor; Richard Gottlieb, managing editor. 6 vols. New York: Macmillan Pub. Co.; London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, c1989.
• American Political Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present, by Steven G. O'Brien; editor, Paula McGuire; consulting editors, James M. McPherson, Gary Gerstle. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, c1991.
• Why the Confederacy Lost, edited by Gabor S. Boritt; essays by James M. McPherson et al. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Gettysburg: The Paintings of Mort Künstler, text by James M. McPherson. Atlanta, GA: Turner Publishing, c1993.
• The Atlas of the Civil War, edited by James M. McPherson. New York: Macmillan, c1994.
• "We Cannot Escape History": Lincoln and the Last Best Hope of Earth, edited by James M. McPherson. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
• The American Heritage New History of the Civil War, narrated by Bruce Catton; edited and with a new introduction by James McPherson. New York: Viking, 1996.
• Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, by Ulysses S. Grant; with an introduction and notes by James M. McPherson. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.
• Encyclopedia of Civil War Biographies, edited by James M. McPherson. 3 vols. Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference, c2000.
• To the Best of My Ability: The American Presidents, edited by James M. McPherson and David Rubel, c2000

External links

• Barnes & Noble - Meet the Writers
• Princeton University Biography
• Democracy Now November 3, 1999: George W. Bush and the Confederacy: Where Does He Stand?
• Virginia UDC: Princeton Educator Maligns UDC
• Presentation on the Civil War
• Interview at the Pritzker Military Library
  Pritzker Military Library
  The Pritzker Military Library is a research library for the study of military history in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded in 2003 by COL James N. Pritzker, IL ARNG to be a non-partisan institution for the study of "the citizen soldier as an essential element for the preservation of...
  
  
• Audio interview with National Review Online
• Wild River Review Interview by Kim Nagy
• McPherson archive from The New York Review of Books
  The New York Review of Books
  The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
  
  
• An exchange with a Civil War historian from the World Socialist Web Site
  World Socialist Web Site
  The World Socialist Web Site is the online news and information center of the International Committee of the Fourth International . The site publishes articles and analysis covering a wide range of topics and events all around the world. The daily 'Perspective' article presents the position of the...
  
  
• James M. McPherson No Peace without Victory, 1861-1865, AHA Presidential Address Retrieved 18 April 2010