Alan Taylor attended Colby College, graduating in 1977. After serving as a researcher for historic preservation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1986. He taught at Boston University (1987-94) and at the University of California, Davis (1994-2014) before taking up the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Chair at the University of Virginia in 2014.
Alan Taylor has won the Pulitzer (twice) and Bancroft Prizes for his histories of early America and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this year. His books include Liberty Men and Great Proprietors: The Revolutionary Settlement on the Maine Frontier (1990), The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution (2006), The Civil War of 1812 (2010), The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (2013) and, most recently, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 (2016).
