Authors

Frederik Pohl’s science fiction has won virtually all the awards in the field, among them the prestigious Nebula (twice) and the Hugo (six times). He made two trips to the Soviet Union for his recently published novel, Chernobyl , which is not, alas, science fiction.

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (1958 – 2006) was a Russian journalist and human rights activist who reported on political events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005). Her reporting from Chechnya earned Politkovskaya an international reputation. For seven years, she refused to give up reporting on the war despite numerous acts of intimidation and violence. Politkovskaya was arrested by Russian military forces in Chechnya and subjected to a mock execution. She was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, and had to turn back, requiring careful medical treatment in Moscow to restore her health.

A screenwriter and novelist, Darryl Pumcsan is the author of Cinderella Liberty, The Last Detail , and Tom Mix Died for Your Sins .

Victoria Pope is the deputy editor of National Geographic magazine and its chief editor for text. Before joining National Geographic in November 2005, she was the executive editor for U.S. News and World Report. Her positions in editing and magazine management followed more than a decade as a foreign correspondent in Germany, Austria, Poland, and Russia. Victoria is the author of a forthcoming book on women pilots of World War II—shares keen insights on alternative careers for women.

Bruce D. Porter teaches political science at Brigham Young University. The themes in this article are expanded on in his book War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics , published this year by the Free Press.

—Gerald Posner is the author of Case Closed: Lee Harvey and the Assassination of JFK and Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Robert C. Post is president of the Society for the History of Technology and the author of Street Railways and the Growth of Los Angeles (Golden West Books, 1989).

E. Alexander Powell has been a foreign service officer and long-time writer for such magazines as Harper’s, the Atlantic, and the old Scribner’s; he has written 33 books. In preparing this article he was aided by Brooke Hindle, associate professor of history at New York University,who has just published The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America .

Ryan Powers is the host of the Almost Immortal history podcast.

Arthur Prager was the planning and operations officer of the Mayor’s Emergency Control Board in New York City during the 1980s. He authored three book: The Mahogany Tree: A History of Punch (1978), Underhanded Backgammon(1977) and World War II Resistance Stories (1984).

Mary Cable, formerly an editor of AMERICAN HERITAGE , is a free-lance writer and author of many books; Annabelle Prager, whoKe aunt was related to Jefferson Monroe Levy, is a writer and illustrator of children’s books.

Ivan E. Prall, who managed an engineering laboratory for General Electric in his hometown, is now writing in his retirement.

John Lowell Pratt was the author of Currier and Ives Chronicles of America and The Official Encyclopedia of Sports.

Roger T. Pray has worked as a prison psychologist, a director of a halfway house for prisoners, and a probation agent. He is currently a researcher with the Utah Department of Corrections.

Jane Freddy is an architectural writer and historian in New York City. She is working on a book on Eberson.

William S. Pretzer is the Senior Curator for History at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture. He previously taught history at Central Michigan University and served as the curator for the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Michigan, where the Rosa Parks bus is displayed in the "With Liberty and Justice For All" exhibit.  

Henry F. Pringle, formerly a distinguished New York newspaperman and professor of journalism at Columbia University, is now a contributor to several national magazines. This article, adapted from his Pulitzer Prize-winning Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography , is used by permission of the author and Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc.

Carmine A. Prioli is in the Department of English at North Carolina State University. His article “The Ursuline Outrage” appeared in our February/March 1982 issue.

Carmine Prioli’s article on the World War II Japanese balloon-bomb campaign appeared in the April/May 1982 issue.

Elizabeth Brown Pryor is a State Department diplomat and noted Civil War era author. In 2008, Pryor was awarded the Lincoln Prize for Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his Private Letters.

Stephen Puleo is an author, historian, teacher, public speaker, and communications professional.  He has published seven narrative history books, including American Treasures, The Caning, A City So Grand, The Boston Italians, Due to Enemy Action, and Dark Tide. Mr. Puleo's most recent book, Voyage of Mercy, tells the story of the the Irish Famine, the USS Jamestown and America’s first humanitarian mission.

John J. Pullen (1914-2003) was a noted military history author and journalist. Best known for his 1957 book, The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War, his writing helped renew popular interest in the Civil War. A veteran himself, Pullen served as a field artilley captain during World War II. John J. Pullen passed away at his home in Brunswick, Maine in 2003.

In her job as a member of the staff of the National Archives, Dr. Purdy arranged an exhibit on the “art” of diplomacy in 1971, and this article grew out of that exhibit. She was assisted in her research by her colleagues Dr. Edith James Blendon and the late Thomas M. Power.

Mike Purdy is a presidential historian, founder of PresidentialHistory.com, and the author of 101 Presidential Insults – What They Really Thought About Each Other – and What It Means to Us. He is also the author of Presidential Friendships: How They Changed History. Mr. Purdy has been interviewed by and quoted in a variety of national and international media outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Associated Press, C-SPAN, Reader’s Digest, Reuters, Bloomberg BNA, the Huffington Post, and BBC. He has had numerous articles published by TheHill.com and the History News Network.

Merlo John Pusey (1902 – 1985) wrote the 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes. He also authored The Supreme Court Crisis and Eisenhower, the President. From 1928 to 1971, Mr. Pusey worked for the Washington Post as an associate editor.

FROM Brave Men BY ERNIE PYLE. COPYRIGHT 1943, 1944 BY SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER ALLIANCE. COPYRIGHT 1944 BY ERNIE PYLE COPYRIGHT © 1971, 1972 BY HOLT, RHINEHART AND WINSTON. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON, PUBLISHERS.

Carin C. Quinn received her master’s degree in American studies from California State University at Los Angeles in 1976; she now attends Neiv York University.

Peter Quinn joined Time Inc. as the chief speechwriter in 1985 and retired as corporate editorial director for Time Warner in 2007. He received a B.A. from Manhattan College in 1969, an M.A. in history from Fordham University in 1974 and completed all the requirements for a doctorate except the dissertation. He was awarded a Ph.D., honoris causa, by Manhattan College in 2002. His 1994 novel Banished Children of Eve (Viking/Penguin) won a 1995 American Book Award. Looking for Jimmy: In Search of Irish America (Overlook), a collection of non-fiction pieces, was published in February 2007.

W. B. Ragsdale was a working reporter for forty-nine years. He is retired now and working on a book on modern political history, much of which he saw in the making.

Charles W. Ramsdell, Jr. (1909-1973) was the son of noted historian Charles W. Ramsdell and Susanna Griffith Ramsdell. Ramsdell attended the University of Texas and traveled extensively in Mexico before working as a historian for the National Park Service. Ramsdell published a highly-regarded guidebook, San Antonio, a Historical and Pictorial Guide, in 1959 and updated it in 1968.

James G. Randall (1881–1953) was a professor of history at the University of Illinois. He was a nationally prominent historian and served as president of the American Historical Association. His masterwork was the four-volume biography, Lincoln, the President. Other books by Prof. Randall included The Confiscation of Property During the Civil War, Constitutional Problems under Lincoln, The Civil War and Reconstruction, and Lincoln and the South.

Wife of the late James G. Randall, Ruth Painter Randall was present at the 1947 opening of the Lincoln Papers in Springfield. The above article is a chapter from Lincoln’s Sons , to be published by Little, Brown and Co. in 1956. Mrs. Randall is now working on a third volume on the Lincoln family.

Willard Sterne Randall, the Distinguished Scholar in History at Champlain College, has written twelve books. Between his careers as an author and investigative journalist, Randall received the National Magazine Award for Public Service from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, the Hillman Prize, the Loeb Award and three Pulitzer Prize nominations.  His books include A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin & His Son (1984), Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor (1990), Thomas Jefferson: A Life (1993), Alexander Hamilton: A Life (2003), and Ethan Allen: His Life and Times (2011), to name a few.  

William Peirce Rondel’s account of the General Slocum disaster appeared in the October/November 1979 issue.

COPYRIGHT © BY THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

Harry Huntt Ransom (1908–1976) was a historian, author, and longtime administrator at the University of Texas. He served as the university's president in 1960, and eventually became the Chancellor of the University of Texas System from 1961 to 1971. He was also instrumental in founding the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which changed its name to the Harry Ransom Center in 1983.

David Rapp is an art historian and has written about history for American Heritage, Technology Review, and Out. He has a degree in film from New York University.  In 2014, he authored Churches and Monasteries in the Holy Land.

Jim Rasenberger is an author and journalist who specializes in modern American history. He has published America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T, and the Making of a Modern Nation in 2007, and his next book, The Brilliant Disaster: JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba's Bay of Pigs, will be released in April 2011. Rasenberger has also contributed to The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian Magazine, and The Wilson Quarterly.

Dan Rather is a world-renowned journalist and the former managing editor and anchor of “CBS Evening News.” Rather began his career in Texas, where he worked as a reporter for the Associated Press, the United Press, and several Texas radio stations before moving to television at KHOU-TV in Houston. In 1962, he joined CBS News, gaining national attention for his coverage of Hurricane Carla and his reporting from the scene of President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963. As a White House correspondent and later as a foreign correspondent, Rather covered key events like the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. As anchor of "CBS Evening News" from 1981 to 2005, Rather was the longest-serving anchor in the program’s history.

Selma Rattner, who has a master’s degree in preservation from Columbia University, is currently working on a biography of the architect James Renwick (1818-95).

Eric Rauchway  holds the position of Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. The recipient of his B.A. from Cornell in 1991 and Ph.D. from Stamford in 1996, his scholarship has focused on modern American political, social, and economic history, particularly of the Progressive Era and the New Deal. He is the author of Murdering McKinley: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt's America (2003), The Great Depression and the New Deal (2008), The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace (2015), and most recently Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal (2018).

—Diane Ravitch is a Brookings Institution senior fellow, a professor of educational history at New York University, and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education.

—Robert Previdi writes about military and political subjects.