Brooks D. Simpson

Who is Brooks D. Simpson?

Brooks Donohue Simpson, an American historian, is ASU Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. He was born August 4, 1957, in Freeport, New York. Educated at the Phillips Exeter Academy, he graduated in 1975; four years later he graduated from the University of Virginia. Receiving his M.A. in history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1982, he earned his Ph.D. in 1989.

After working three years as an assistant editor for The Papers of Andrew Johnson, based at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Simpson joined the faculty at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1987. Three years later, in 1990, he migrated west to Arizona State University, where he presently teaches. Currently he divides his time between Barrett, The Honors College at ASU and the School for Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies.

Simpson is the author of six books, the coauthor of two more, and the editor or coeditor of eight other books. He is perhaps best known for his work on Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865, published by Houghton Mifflin in 2000, was a New York Times Notable Book and a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for that year. He has appeared several times on C-SPAN, speaking on Henry Adams and Grant, as well as on PBS's American Experience. In 2009 the U. S. State Department asked him to travel to Turkey for two weeks to lecture on Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama in historical context. After serving four years as one of the contributors to the prize-winning "Civil Warriors" blog, in late 2010 Simpson started his own blog, "Crossroads."