Claudio Saunt
Claudio Saunt is the Richard B. Russell Professor in American History and the associate director of the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia, A native of San Francisco, he has long been interested in exploring the early history of all parts of the continent and all the peoples living there, and his scholarship has been widely recognized for its innovative approach to the early American past.
His most recent book, West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 was published by W.W. Norton. It invites readers to extend their bounds and discover the continent beyond the British colonies, by looking at nine American places, stretching from the Aleutian Islands to San Diego, and from the Florida Gulf Coast to the Saskatchewan River in 1776. Writing in Newsweek, Jacob E. Osterhout called it “[A] panoramic view of North America … rife with fascinating facts.”
Claudio’s first book, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, was published by Cambridge University Press in 1999 and received both the Sydnor Award for the best book on southern history and the Wheeler-Voegelin Award for the best book in ethnohistory. More recently, Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family, was published in 2005 by Oxford University Press. It was awarded the Clements Prize for the best non-fiction book on the American Southwest. His articles, which have also won several awards, have appeared in leading scholarly journals, including The Journal of American History, The Journal of Southern History, and The William and Mary Quarterly.
He has appeared on the PBS series “African American Lives,” and has been featured in radio and TV documentaries on NPR and PBS. Recently, he co-founded eHistory.org, which is dedicated to building web-based projects that integrate social networking with the study of history.
