Tell Mr. DeMille that Robert is ready for his closeup

My Scholarly Journey

I trained at UCLA under Joyce Appleby, completing fields in European history, social and economic history, and legal history. My primary research interest has always been the rise of the American republic in the Atlantic world of the eighteenth century. More specifically, I am interested in how notions of religious, political and economic liberty took root in a slaveholding republic.

For over twenty years I taught at several different universities, offering courses in U.S. history, legal & constitutional history, Atlantic slavery, the American West, leadership and so on. I published three books, a handful of articles and far too many book reviews. Teaching and researching history is a privileged career, and I am grateful to have had that experience. I retired from that work in 2023 and moved to Santa Monica.

I still read and write, and work with history teachers whenever possible. As an educational consultant, I continue to work with teachers as they navigate the political thicket while trying to do justice to America’s fascinating, complicated and, at times, infuriating history.

I also write about culture, politics and law for general audiences. Actually, that should be in the past tense, as I haven’t written about these subjects in some time. As a freelancer, I prefer to pick up occasional assignments to write about wine, Hollywood and music. Yes, these subjects vaguely follow my personal proclivities. So I do enjoy finding assignments to dig into them.

  • I earned my bachelor's from Pomona College and my master's from the University of Manitoba in Interdisciplinary Studies while on a Fulbright Scholarship. My doctoral work was completed at UCLA under the guidance of Joyce Appleby.

    I have taught as a visiting professor at Marquette University and was tenured at Georgia State University, where I taught for seventeen years before retiring. (Apparently, I still owe them keys.)

  • My first two books, The Rescue of Joshua Glover and Prigg v. Pennsylvania comprehensively treat the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on fugitive slaves. Along with several published articles, I have sustained a scholarly argument that American constitutionalism was determined as much outside the courts as it was in them, and that the Supreme Court was never the final arbiter of constitutional meaning.

    My third book, Teaching Enslavement in American History (co-authored with Chara Bohan and LaGarrett J. King) is a complete introduction to slavery in America. Importantly, it puts slavery in the context of Black history, with its relentless striving to achieve freedom and abolition, with all its implications for American understandings of liberty and justice.

    My scholarship covers more ground than slavery and freedom, though.I have written articles about federalism, constitutionalism, Magna Carta (the one from 1215), legal history, citizenship, and sentimentalism in American letters.

  • Education is more than just passing on knowledge. It is about passion and excitement. It is the thrill when you see a student's curiosity awoken or inspiration discovered.

    For more than twenty years, I have devoted myself to developing a pedagogy of wonder and passion. I have worked to communicate this to my own college students (many of whom became award-winning teachers) and to teachers I have served.

    I ran three NEH Institutes for schoolteachers on slavery & freedom in America, along with co-director Chara Bohan, professor of education at Georgia State University. Bohan and I also collaborated on a Teaching American History grant in Georgia where we worked directly with schoolteachers to increase their subject-matter knowledge and enhance their pedagogical delivery.

    For my work on implementing Reacting to the Past into classrooms at Georgia State University, I was named a Chancellor's Learning Scholar in 2018. I frequently consult for the National Council for History Education.