American historian and journalist. Professor at Harvard University and staff writer for The New Yorker. Her career spanned the University of California Berkeley, and Boston University before her time at Harvard, while she also served as a visiting scholar for the Phi Beta Kappa Society and a frequent lecturer in series around the country. She is president of the Society of American Historians and Emeritus Commissioner of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Her awards include the Bancroft Prize (1999), the American History Book Prize (2015), and The Pulitzer Prize for History (2026).
