Loading AI tools
American historian and author From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elizabeth Cobbs is an American historian, commentator and author of nine books including three novels, a history textbook and five non-fiction works.[1] She retired from Melbern G. Glasscock Chair in American History[2] at Texas A&M University (2015-2023), following upon a four-decade career in California where she began working for the Center for Women's Studies and Services as a teenager. She writes on the subjects of feminism and human rights, and the history of U.S. foreign relations. She is known for advancing the controversial theory that the United States is not an empire, challenging a common scholarly assumption. She asserts instead that the federal government has played the role of “umpire” at home and abroad since 1776.[3]
Elizabeth Cobbs | |
---|---|
Born | Gardena, California | July 28, 1956
Occupation | Writer, lecturer, historian, professor, producer |
Language | English |
Citizenship | American |
Education | Literature/writing |
Alma mater | University of California, San Diego |
Period | 18th through 21st centuries |
Genre | U.S. and Modern World History |
Subject | History, Literature/Writing |
Years active | 1971–present |
Notable works | Fearless Women, The Tubman Command, The Hello Girls, The Hamilton Affair, American Umpire, Broken Promises, The Rich Neighbor Policy, All You Need Is Love, Major Problems in American History |
Notable awards | Allan Nevins Prize, Telly Award, Emmy Award, San Diego Book Award Start Bernath Prize |
Spouse | James Shelley |
Children | Gregory Shelby and Victoria Shelby |
Website | |
elizabethcobbs |
She is also credited as a screenwriter on the film adaptation of her book American Umpire,[4][5][6][7] as a producer on the film adaptation of her book The Hello Girls, and as a screenwriter and producer of the public television documentary CyberWork and the American Dream: The History and Future of Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.[8]
Elizabeth Cobbs was born on July 28, 1956 in Gardena, California. Cobbs studied literature at the University of California, San Diego and graduated summa cum laude in 1983. She earned her M.A. and PhD in American History from Stanford University in 1988. While at Stanford, she won the David Potter Award for Outstanding History Graduate Student. Following graduation, she won the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians for the Best Dissertation on U.S. History.[9]
She taught nine years at the University of San Diego, becoming chair of the History Department, and then accepted the Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations at San Diego State University. She has been a Fulbright scholar in Ireland and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C and a Senior Fellow of Stanford's Hoover Institution.[9][10][11]
Elizabeth Cobbs served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2008. She also served two terms on the Historical Advisory Committee of the US State Department from 1999 to 2006, advising on transparency in government and the declassification of top secret documents and transparency in government.
Elizabeth Cobbs started her writing career at the age of 15 as a community organizer and publications coordinator for the Center for Women's Studies and Services in Southern California. During this period, she founded and headed several innovative projects for adults and young people supported partly by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. She received the international John D. Rockefeller Youth Award in 1979, at the age of 23 for her services to humanity.[12]
Elizabeth Cobbs has written over 40 articles for media such as The Jerusalem Post, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, Reuters, China Daily News, National Public Radio, Washington Independent, San Diego Union Tribune, The Washington Post, and several other publications. Her first nonfiction book was The Rich Neighbor Policy; she has since written five more books about American history and politics.[4]
Cobbs also wrote and co-produced the PBS documentary American Umpire which is based on her book of the same name. It explores America's foreign policy "grand strategy" for the next 50 years.[6]
Her first non-fiction book, The Rich Neighbor Policy, claimed the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians and also the Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.[13]
Yale University Press published The Rich Neighbor Policy in 1992. The book focuses on the activities of the manufacturing and financial magnates, Henry Kaiser and Nelson Rockefeller, in Brazil. The pair transferred American technology and techniques to enhance the development of Brazil.[14]
Cobbs' second book is based on the people and politics behind the Peace Corps, and discusses themes of American idealism at work during the difficult realities of the second half of the twentieth century. All You Need is Love was published in October 1998.[15][16]
Major Problems in American History, in two volumes,[17][18] introduces college undergraduates to the major events and phases of American history. As co-editor with Jon Gjerde and later Edward Blum, Cobbs has edited four editions of the book 2002 (Houghton-Mifflin, Cengage). [19][20]
Broken Promises: A Novel of the Civil War was published by Ballantine Books on March 29, 2011, the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter. The book won the San Diego Book Award and also Director's Mention for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction.[21][22]
American Umpire, a reinterpretation of the United States' role in global affairs from 1776 to 2012, was published by Harvard University Press in March 2013.[23][24][25][26]
Cobbs' novel The Hamilton Affair was published by Skyhorse Publishing in August 2016. The Hamilton Affair is based on the remarkable lives of Alexander Hamilton and his wife Eliza Schuyler, who survived him following his infamous duel with US vice-president Aaron Burr and raised their surviving seven children alone while helping other impoverished families.[7]
Cobbs's The Hello Girls: America's First Women Soldiers was published by Harvard University Press in 2017, the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into World War I. The book chronicles the Hello Girls' service in France during World War I with the United States Army Signal Corps and their later battle to receive veterans benefits for their military service. [27]
Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing released Cobbs' historical novel The Tubman Command in May 2019.[28] The work is a fictional retelling of the 1863 Combahee River raid on Confederate positions during the Civil War and the role of abolitionist Harriet Tubman in that military operation.[29][30]
Cobbs' Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé was published by Harvard University Press in 2023. It argues that feminism was born in the American Revolution and has driven U.S. history since, influencing not only the global expansion of women's rights, but also the abolition of slavery, the spread of industrialization, the creation of a social safety net, and the doubling of the U.S. economy.[31]
Elizabeth Cobbs has received two literary prizes for American History and two for fiction.[32] She is the recipient of Director's Mention for the 2009 Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction,[33] the 2009 San Diego Book Award for Broken Promise: A Novel of the Civil War Best Historical Fiction (Winner),[32] the 1993 Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, SHAFR, for the best first book on the history of U.S. foreign relations (winner).[34]
Cobbs was a Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution from 2010 to 2020,[35] held the 2003–2004 Fulbright Distinguished Professorship at University College Dublin, Ireland, the 1997 Bernath Lecture Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), a 1993 Fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.,[35] and the 1989 Allan Nevins Prize from Society of American Historians for Best Dissertation on U.S. History: The Rich Neighbor Policy.
Elizabeth Cobbs has received film awards for co-producing or screenwriting three documentaries for public television, including a 2020 Los Angeles Regional Emmy Award for CyberWork[36] and the American Dream, a 2020 Telly Award, Silver Medal, for CyberWork and the American Dream, a 2018 prize in the PBS competition “About Women and Girls Film Festival” for The Hello Girls, a 2018 Best Documentary Feature for CyberWork and the American Dream in the Los Angeles Film Award, Platinum for Best Documentary, and Best Short Documentary for American Umpire in the 2016 San Diego GI Film Festival.[37][38]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.