Elizabeth R. Varon grew up in Virginia and took her BA with Distinction in History from Swarthmore College, and her MA and PhD from Yale University. After teaching at Wellesley College and Temple University, she moved to the University of Virginia where she is currently the Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History.
Her teaching focuses on the political and cultural history of the 19th-century United States. At Oxford, she will participate in the DPhil workshop, co-teach the Master’s course, supervise Master’s students, and offer lectures in US History.
Varon's research specialty is the Civil War era and 19th-century South, with a focus on political dissent and discourse. Her most recent book, Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War, won the 2020 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and was named one of the Wall Street Journal's best books of 2019. Her new book, Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South, is forthcoming this November with Simon & Schuster, and her current research project is a biography of humanitarian Clara Barton, under contract with Simon & Schuster.Â
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