Jefferson R. Cowie

Jan 22, 2025 | fivebooks.com | Jacqueline Jones |Jefferson R. Cowie |Ada Ferrer |Nicole Eustace

If you enjoy reading books about American history, then why not consider working your way through the list of Pulitzer Prize-winning titles? From expertly constructed narratives on everything from the development of the polio vaccine to key turning points in the Revolutionary War, you’re certain to find a topic you’d like to know more about.

Jun 20, 2024 | newrepublic.com | Jefferson R. Cowie

There are words we know, and there are words we argue about, working our way to a shared meaning. And then there is that unique category of terms that, once they appear, stubbornly refuse to succumb to any mutual understanding no matter how belabored the discussion. Such is the boggy terrain known as “American liberalism.” At best it carries meaning through its modifiers—but then, there are just way too many of those. Lockean? Rawlsian? Jeffersonian? Social? New Deal? Libertarian? Pragmatic?

Apr 14, 2024 | news.vanderbilt.edu | Jefferson R. Cowie

The Board of Trustees of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced the appointment of 188 Guggenheim Fellowships to a distinguished and diverse group of culture creators working across 52 disciplines. Jefferson Cowie, the James G. Stahlman Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, was named to this 99th class of Guggenheim Fellows.

Feb 21, 2024 | bostonreview.net | Aziz Rana |Jefferson R. Cowie

Jefferson Cowie, Vanderbilt University historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Freedom’s Dominion (2022), recently sat down with Boston College legal scholar Aziz Rana to discuss his argument in Boston Review’s recent forum, “A Different Freedom.” In his essay, Rana sketches the path to a different politics of freedom—one that captures the meaning associated with a long line of liberation struggles to which the left has been historically committed.

Jan 21, 2024 | portside.org | Felicia Wong |Michael Tomasky |Jefferson R. Cowie

The Scary Third Meaning of Freedom Published January 21, 2024 Vanderbilt historian Jefferson Cowie has written several highly influential volumes in his career, including Stayin’ Alive, about the 1970s, and The Great Exception, on the New Deal. This year, he struck gold with his newest work, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power. In April, it won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.