Alan Taylor (historian)

Alan Shaw Taylor (born June 17, 1955) is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial history of the United States, the American Revolution, and the early American Republic. Taylor has received two Pulitzer Prizes and the Bancroft Prize, and was also a finalist for the National Book Award for non-fiction. In 2020 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Education
Taylor was born 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 coming to University of Virginia, Taylor taught previously 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.

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.

In the list of multiple Pulitzer Prize winners, Taylor is one of five authors to have twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History.

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."

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

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. ISBN 0807819093
 * William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. ISBN 0394580540
 * American Colonies: The Settling of North America, New York: Viking/Penguin, 2001. ISBN 0670872822
 * Writing Early American History, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. ISBN 0812238834
 * The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. ISBN 0679454713
 * The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. ISBN 1400042658
 * Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, USA: 2012. ISBN 9780199766239
 * The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013. ISBN 9780393073713
 * American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804, W. W. Norton & Company, 2016. ISBN 0393082814
 * Thomas Jefferson's Education, W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. ISBN 0393652424
 * American Republics: A Continental History of the United States, 1783–1850, W. W. Norton & Company, 2021. ISBN 9781324005797
 * American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850–1873, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024. ISBN 9781324035282

Books as contributor

 * (Contributor) "One Nation Divisible,"