Sep 20, 2023 - Dr. Alan Taylor, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia, will serve as the 2023 Carls-Schwerdfeger History Lecturer on Monday, October 16, 2023.
Professor Taylor will deliver two lectures. His first lecture, titled “Thomas Jefferson’s Education: Creating a Southern University,” will take place at 2:00 p.m. in Union’s Carl Grant Events Center. At 7:15 p.m., Taylor will talk about “American Republics: Union, Disunion, and Expansion, 1783-1850” in Union’s G. M. Savage Memorial Chapel. Both lectures are free and open to the public.
A two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Taylor has authored or edited 12 books on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American history. His book William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic (1995) won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize, Bancroft Prize, and Beveridge Award. Professor Taylor won a second Pulitzer Prize for The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (2014). His book American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783-1850 (2021), which will be the focus of his evening lecture, was recently awarded the New York Historical Society’s Barbara and David Zalaznich Book Prize in American History.
Professor Taylor earned his Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University in 1986. He has taught at the University of California, Davis, Boston University, and the University of Virginia throughout his career. An engaging lecturer, Professor Taylor is known for his mastery of a narrative approach to history that combines fascinating storytelling with insightful analysis.