Authors

Ada Nisbet was a professor of English at UCLA who wrote several studies of nineteenth-century Anglo-American relations. She published Dickens and Ellen Ternan (1952) and edited Dickens Centennial Essays.

Mary Noel was educated at Radcliffe and Columbia University. She is the author of Villains Galore (Macmillan, 1954), about the era of the popular story weekly, and teaches history at the Polytechnic Institute, San German, Puerto Rico.

Bennett Nolan, a member of the Pennsylvania Historical Commission lives in Reading. He has collected, over many year, the facts about these paintings and the people who appear in them.

William A. Nolen, M.D., graduated from Tufts medical school in 1953. He received his surgical training in the Cornell Surgical Division at Bellevue and served in the Army Medical Corps. He is currently the chief of surgery at the Litchfield Clinic in Litchfield, Minnesota. Among the eight books he has written for a general audience is The Making of a Surgeon . His last article for American Heritage was “ A Short History of Heart Surgery ” (August/ September 1983).

Michael Norman, a professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, co-authored Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2009) with his wife, Elizabeth.

David A. Norris is a freelance magazine writer and the former president of the Cape Fear Civil War Round Table. Born in Charlotte, Norris specializes in the Civil War, more specifically North Carolina's role. His first book, Potter's Raid: The Union Cavalry's Boldest Expedition in Eastern North Carolina, was published in 2008.

This article has been adapted from Mary Beth Norton’s forthcoming Liberty’s Daughters , to be published soon by Little, Brown & Co. Ms. Norton is an associate professor of history at Cornell University.

Jeanne Van Nostrand, formerly librarian of the California Historical Society, is co-author of California Pictorial (University of California Press, 1948), and of A Camera in the Gold Rush (Book Club of California, 1946). For further reading: Sea Bears, The Story of the Fur Seal , by Fredericka Martin (Chilton Company, 1960).

Frederic D. O'Brien is a former senior editor of American Heritage, Invention & Technology, and National Review. He earned a B.A. from Columbia University and worked as a proofreader at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom before turning to magazine editing.

Patrick K. O'Donnell is an independent historian and the author of 13 books on American military history, with topics ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Battle of Fallujah. Notable works include Into the Rising Sun: In Their Own Words, World War II's Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat, We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah, Washington's Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution, and The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware.

Stephen B. Oates is the author of sixteen books, including With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln and Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr., both recipients of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award and Christopher Award. Other notable works include The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861. Oates was featured in Ken Burns's The Civil War series on PBS and received the Nevins-Freeman Award of the Chicago Civil War Round Table for lifetime achievement in the field of Civil War studies. A former Guggenheim fellow, he holds a B.A., M.A., and PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. Oates is also a professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Josiah Ober is a historian and Professor of Political Science and Classics at Stanford University, where he holds the Markos & Eleni Kounalakis Chair in Honor of Constantine Mitsotakis. He specializes in historical institutionalism and political theory, focusing on the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world and its contemporary relevance. He is the author of a number of books on those subjects, including Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (1989), Political Dissent in Democratic Athens (2008), and Democracy and Knowledge (2008). He has also published about 75 articles and chapters, including recent articles in American Political Science Review, Philosophical Studies, Hesperia, Polis, and Transactions of the American Philological Association.

—David Obst is the author of the memoir Too Good to Be Forgotten: Changing America in the ’60s and ’70s .

Ed Offley has worked as a military reporter and editor since 1981, including for The Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Virginia, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the online newspaper Stripes.com, DefenseWatch at Soldiers for the Truth and The News Herald in Panama City, Florida. He is the author of five books on military subjects, including The Burning Shore: How Hitler's U-boats Brought World War II to America, Turning the Tide: How a Small Band of Allied Sailors Defeated the U-boats and Won the Battle of the Atlantic, and Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon - the Untold Story of the USS Scorpion, an investigative report on the loss of the nuclear attack submarine USS Scorpion (SSN-589) in 1968.

A frequent contributor to AMERICAN HERITAGE , Charlton Ogburn has written several books on North America, the most recent being The Southern Appalachians: A Wilderness Quest (William Morrow, 1975).

Charlton Ogburn, Jr., is now at work on The Continent in our Hands , a first-person narrative of discovery of the country’s natural splendors and of what he believes confronts them.

—Bruce Olds is the author of the novels Raising Holy Hell , about John Brown, and the recently published Bucking the Tiger .

Thomas Oliphant is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and Washington columnist for The Boston Globe. He is the author of four books, including The Road to Camelot. Al Franken says “Oliphant brings more to the table than anyone I know.” Madeline Albright called him “the Will Rogers of our times.” Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote that his book Praying for Gil Hodges was a “small masterpiece.” Oliphant has been a frequent guest on television news programs, including "Nightline" on ABC-TV, "The NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer on PBS, "Face The Nation," the "Today" show, "Good Morning America" and "CBS This Morning."  Oliphant was also a regular guest on "The Al Franken Show."

Kathryn S. Olmsted is a member of the history department at the University of California, Davis, where she has taught since 1993. A 1985 graduate of Stanford University, she gained her PhD in 1993 from the university where she now teaches. She chaired her department from 2013 until 2016 and since has been interim chair of gender, sexuality, and women's studies. Olmsted is the author of several books, including Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism (The New Press), Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI, Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley, and Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. She is currently writing a book on newspaper publishers in the US and the UK in the years before World War II.

Admiral Olsen was a career US Navy officer who helped deliver naval vessels to the Russians during World War II and was a member of the American staff at the Yalta talks. He also served as Commandant of the 14th Naval District.

Lynne Olson is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

PETER S. ONUF is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for more than twenty years. Onuf is also Senior Fellow at Monticello’s Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. A leading scholar of Jefferson and the early American republic, he is the author, co-author, and editor of numerous books including (as author) Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (2001), The Mind of Thomas Jefferson (2007), and (as editor) Jeffersonian Legacies (1993). He is co-author with Annette Gordon-Reed of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination 2016), a finalist for the 2017 George Washington Prize.

George Oppenheimer, drama critic, screenwriter, playwright, and author of several books, was a frequent guest at the Garden of Allah. For further reading: The Garden of Allah , by Sheila Graham (Crown, 1970)

Robert Garth Scott is the editor of Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals and Civil War Letters of Maj. Gen. Orlando Bolivar Willcox , to be published next fall by Kent State University Press.

Paul Ortiz is a professor of history at the University of Florida and director of the award-winning Samuel Proctor Oral History Program. His book, An African American and Latinx History of the United States was the recipient of the 2018 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence. Prof. Ortiz is also the author of Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Blood Election of 1920, and co-editor of Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South (New Press)

David Oshinsky, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Polio: An American Story, holds the Jack S. Blanton chair in history at the University of Texas at Austin and is a distinguished scholar in residence at New York University. Other awards include: 2010 Cartwright Prize from Columbia University Medical Center for his research into the history of polio; 2009 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Dean’s Medal for significant contributions to the field of public health.

Peter Osnos is an American journalist and the founder of PublicAffairs Books, which specializes in subjects such as journalism, history, biography and social criticism. Osnos founded the company in 1997, after serving as vice president and associate publisher at Random House (1984-1996). Before that, Osnos was a reporter and foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and served as the newspaper's foreign and national editor (1966-1984). Osnos has also served on the board of directors of Human Rights Watch, as vice chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review (2007-2012), and in 2020 co-founded Platform Books with his wife, Susan.  In May 2021, Platform will publish his book, An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, to be sold and distributed by Two Rivers/Ingram.

James L. Swanson is a Lincoln collector and writes about the Presidents, copyright law, the entertainment industry, and the First Amendment. Lloyd Ostendorf, a Lincoln artist and collector, is the author of Lincoln in Photographs: An Album of Every Known Pose .

Fulton Oursler, Jr., a freelance writer, was formerly deputy editor in chief of Reader’s Digest . This article is adapted from Magic Man , a memoir he is writing about his father.

Richard Overy is a honorary professor at the University of Exeter and a leading English historian of World War II. His books include 1939: Countdown to War; The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia; The Morbid Age: Britain Between the Wars; Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow; and his latest, Blood and Ruins: The Great Imperial War, 1931-45. Overy is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the British Academy and has contributed to the design of various Imperial War Museum exhibits.

William A. Owens is associate professor of English at Columbia University and director of the Oral History of Texas Oil Pioneers at the University of Texas. He is the author of Slave Mutiny: The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad (The John Day Company, 1953), the standard treatment of the famous Amistad case, to which all subsequent writers on that subject must be indebted. Professor Owens has also written a novel, Fever in the Earth , based on the oil industry. It was recently published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Geoffrey O’Brien is editor in chief of the Library of America. His recent books include The Phantom Empire (Norton, 1993) and The Times Square Story (Norton, 1998).

Robert L. O’Connell is an intelligence analyst with the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the author of Of Arms and Men: A History of War, Weapons, and Aggression (Oxford University Press, 1989).

Richard O'Connor (1915-1975) was the author of 21 books including Thomas, Rock of Chickamauga (1948), Jack London: A Biography (1964), Young Bat Masterson (1967), Iron Wheels and Broken Men: The Railroad Barons and the Plunder of the West (1973), and Gould's Millions (1973).

Copyright © 1958 by Leonard Wibberley. By permission of Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York. Leonard P. Wibberley was born in Dublin but has spent much of his adult life in America, fifteen years of it as a Los Angeles newspaperman. He has written a number of novels, among them the recent McGillicuddy McGotham , and several works of nonfiction.

Joe O'Donnell (1922-2007) served as a combat photographer in the United States Marines during World War II, eventually receiving orders to photograph Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo shortly after the final bombings in August 1945. He later worked for the U.S. Information Agency, photographing Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. In Japan in the 1980s O'Donnell published Japan 1945: A US Marine's Photos from Ground Zero; an American edition was released in 2005. O'Donnell passed away in 2007 at the age of 85. 

A former New York newspaperman and CBS Radio executive news editor, Mr. O’Flaherty now resides in Richmond, Va., and is working on a book about blockade running.

James S. Packer is a western history buff who grew up in Carlsbad, New Mexico. He has written for numerous magazines including American Heritage, Smithsonian, and Family Circle, and is the author of Saints, Sinners, and Christian History: The Contradictions of the Christian Past.

—Peter Padfield’s latest book about naval warfare is Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind .

—Camille Paglia is a professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Her fourth book, a study of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds , was recently published.