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Scott Reynolds Nelson

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Professor
Georgia Athletic Association Professor

Professor Nelson writes about 19th-century history including the history of slavery, international finance, the history of science, and global commodities.

His most recent book is Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World about the US and the Russian Empires' competition to feed Europe between 1789 and 1919. It has been featured on the BBC, the CBC, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and New York Review of Books.

His other books include Steel Drivin’ Man (2007), about the life of Black folklore legend John Henry, which won four national awards including the National Award for Arts Writing and the Merle Curti Prize for best book in US social history. A young-adult book he co-wrote with Marc Aronson, Ain’t Nothing But a Man (2007), describes how historians do research. With Carol Sheriff he wrote A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil War (2008). His book on the history of financial crashes, A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters (2012), was named a best business book of the year by Business Week.

He has been a research fellow at Harvard University, the École des Hautes études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and Chicago's Newberry Library. In 2019-20 he was named a Guggenheim fellow.

He has a chapter entitled "The Bourbon South" in A New History of the American South, published by UNC Press in 2023. A recent review in The New Republic is here.

In his spare time he reads science fiction and drinks too much espresso.

Selected Publications:
Books

Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (Basic, 2022)

A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters (Knopf, 2012)

Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (Oxford University Press, 2006)

Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction (University of North Carolina Press, 1999)

Co-Authored Books

With Carol Sheriff, A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2007)

With Marc Aronson, Ain't Nothing But A Man (National Geographic Children's Books, 2007)

Edited Books

With Carol Sheriff, The American Civil War at Home (Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission, 2013)

Refereed Articles

“Who Put their Capitalism in My Slavery?” Journal of the Civil War Era 5.2 (June 2015): 289-310.

The Ordeal of Eugene Debs: The Panic of 1893, the Pullman Strike and the Origins of the Progressive Movement,” in Leon Fink, et. al., eds., Workers in Hard Times: A Long View of Economic Crises (University of Illinois Press, 2014), 99-110.

Education:

PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, U.S. History 1995

Of note:

Guggenheim Fellow 2019-20

Visiting Scholar, École des Hautes études en Sciences Sociales, France, 2018

Charles Warren Fellow, Harvard University, 2010-11

Lloyd Lewis Fellow in American History, Newberry Library, 2009-10

Commonwealth of Virginia Distinguished Scholar, 2007-2016

Merle Curti Prize: best book in US Social and Cultural History, Organization of American Historians, 2007

Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction, 2007

Anisfield-Wolf Literary Prize for Nonfiction, books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity, 2007

Events featuring Scott Reynolds Nelson
LeConte Hall Room 320

History graduate student professional development workshop.

DIGI Lab, 3rd floor Main Library

Scott Reynolds Nelson will talk about using Word files and digital folders to manage document workflow for large research projects. Topics will include the flow-documents, place-keepers, and writing-diaries that help a writer maintain focus. He will also discuss using machine-learning tools to improve scholarly serendipity. Sites and applications discussed (but…

101 LeConte Hall

Join us for another episode of the Lunchtime Time Machine, featuring Dr. Scott Reynolds Nelson.

Professor Nelson writes about 19th-century US history including the history of slavery and Reconstruction. He also writes about international finance, the history of science, and global commodities. In his spare time he reads science fiction and drinks too…

265 Park Hall

Join us as Dr. Scott Reynolds Nelson discusses his book, Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World (Basic Books, 2022).

Scott Reynolds Nelson is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor of History at the…

101 LeConte Hall

This installment of the Department of History’s undergraduate lecture series features Dr. Scott Reynolds Nelson, who presents the question, "How did the murder of a Black activist end Reconstruction in North Carolina?"

Professor Nelson writes about 19th-century history including the history of slavery, international finance, the…

Articles Featuring Scott Reynolds Nelson

Trying to make sense of the War in Ukraine?  Scott Reynolds  Nelson's latest book and research provides a further historical perspective on the current situation.

Scott Nelson, Georgia Athletic Association Professor in Humanities in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.

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