Alan Taylor (historian)

Early life and education

Taylor was born on June 17, 1955 in Portland, Maine, the son of Ruel Taylor, Jr. and author Virginia C. Taylor. He graduated from Colby College, in Waterville, Maine, in 1977, and earned his PhD from Brandeis University in 1986.

Career

Before going to the University of Virginia, Taylor taught at the University of California, Davis and Boston University.

Taylor is best known for his contributions to microhistory, exemplified in his William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (1996). Using court records, land records, letters and diaries, Taylor reconstructed the background of founder William Cooper from Burlington, New Jersey, and the economic, political and social history related to the land speculation, founding and settlement of Cooperstown, New York, after the American Revolutionary War.

He appears in Ken Burns's PBS series The American Revolution (2025).

Taylor is among a generation of historians committed to the revival of narrative history, incorporating many historical methods (political, social, cultural, and environmental, among others) to understand humans' experiences of the past.

Taylor's The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (2006) explored the history of the borders between Canada and the United States in the aftermath of the American Revolution, as well as Iroquois attempts to keep control of some lands. His book The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies (2010) also addressed this borderland area and strategies pursued by various groups. The War of 1812 has also been characterized as a continuation of the Revolutionary War.

Taylor is one of five authors to have twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History. He won it for William Cooper's Town and The Internal Enemy.

Contributing to the anthology Our American Story (2019), Taylor addressed the possibility of a shared American narrative and offered a skeptical approach, arguing, "There is no single unifying narrative linking past and present in America. Instead, we have enduring divisions in a nation even larger and more diverse than that of 1787. The best we can do today is to cope with our differences by seeking compromises, just as the Founders had to do, painfully and incompletely in the early Republic."

Taylor has written a series of four book whose "plural titles," he writes, "convey a core attempt to see our history as continental rather than simply the isolate story of one nation". They are American Colonies, American Revolutions, American Republics, and American Civil Wars.

Awards

• 1996 Bancroft Prize for William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic
• 1996 Beveridge Award for William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic
• 1996 Pulitzer Prize for William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic
• 2007 Cox Book Prize for The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution
• 2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction finalist for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
• 2014 Pulitzer Prize for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia: 1772-1832
• 2014 Merle Curti Award for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia: 1772-1832
• 2014 George Washington Book Prize finalist for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia: 1772-1832
• 2017 George Washington Book Prize finalist for American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804
• 2021 New-York Historical Society book prizes, Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize in American History, for American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850 Scholar of the Early Republic Wins American History Book Prize, New York Times

Works

Books as author

• Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier 1760-1820, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990.
• William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
• American Colonies: The Settling of North America, New York: Viking/Penguin, 2001.
• Writing Early American History, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.
• The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
• The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
• Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA: 2012.
• The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013.
• American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804, W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.
• Thomas Jefferson's Education, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.
• American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783–1850, W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.
• American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024.

Books as contributor

• "One Nation Divisible,"

References

References

1. (14 April 2014). "U.Va. Historian Alan Taylor Wins 2014 Pulitzer for Book on Slaves and War". UVA Today.
2. "The American Philosophical Society Welcomes New Members for 2020".
3. Alan Taylor. "The Civil War of 1812". Pritzker Military Museum & Library.
4. Faculty page at University of California Davis http://history.ucdavis.edu/people/szalanta
5. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1400042658 The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies: Alan Taylor: 9781400042654: Amazon.com: Books]
6. (2019). "Our American Story: The Search for a Shared National Narrative". Potomac Books.
7. Taylor, Alan. ''American Civil Wars'', p. xix.
8. "The 1996 Pulitzer Prize Winner in History".
9. "Cox Book Prize".
10. [http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/awards-and-prizes/article/59564-national-book-award-finalists-announced.html "2013 National Book Award Finalists Announced"]. ''[[Publishers Weekly]]''. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
11. [https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2013#.UmViA6xXHw8 "2013 National Book Awards"]. NBF. Retrieved 2013-10-21.
12. "2014 Pulitzer Prizes".