About the Author

Peter N. Stearns is provost and professor of history at George Mason University. He has written extensively on topics in world history and American cultural and social history, often within the framework of comparative analysis.

Noralee Frankel is AHA assistant director for women, minorities, and teaching. She is senior executive staff to the AHA's Teaching Division and the author of Freedom's Women: Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi.