William J. Cooper Jr. (born October 22, 1940) is an American historian who specializes in the history of the American South, and is regarded as a leading expert on the life of

Jefferson Davis Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the only President of the Confederate States of America, president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the Unite ...

Early life and education

Cooper studied at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

and

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

Career

After two years of service as an officer in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

, he went on to spend his entire academic career at

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as Louisiana State University (LSU), is an American Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louis ...

Works

*''The Conservative Regime: South Carolina, 1877-1890'' (1968) *''The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828-56'' (1979) *''Liberty and Slavery'' (1983) *''The American South: A History'' (1996) (with Tom E. Terrill) *''Jefferson Davis, American'' (2000) *''Jefferson Davis and the Civil War Era'' (2008) *''We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860-April 1861'' (2012) *''The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics'' (2017) *''Approaching Civil War and Southern History'' (2019)

References

External links

* Living people 1940 births American historians Princeton University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Louisiana State University faculty Historians of the Southern United States People from Kingstree, South Carolina {{US-historian-stub