Cayton, Andrew R.L. 1954-

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Cayton, Andrew R.L. 1954-

(Andrew Robert Lee Cayton)

PERSONAL:

Born May 9, 1954, in Cincinnati, OH; son of Robert Frank (a librarian) and Vivian (a high school teacher) Cayton; married Mary Kupiec (a college professor), August 23, 1975; children: Elizabeth Renanne. Education: University of Virginia, B.A. (with high honors), 1976; Brown University, M.A., 1977, Ph.D., 1981.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Oxford, OH. Office—Miami University, Department of History, Oxford, OH 45056-1879. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Historian, educator, and writer. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, lecturer, 1980-81, instructor in history and literature, 1981-82; Ball State University, Muncie, IN, assistant professor, 1982-86, associate professor of history, beginning 1986; Miami University, Department of History, Miami, OH, distinguished professor. Visiting assistant professor at Wellesley College, 1981-82.

MEMBER:

American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, Indiana Historical Society, Ohio Historical Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Ohioana Book Award for History, 1987, for The Frontier Republic.

WRITINGS:

The Frontier Republic: Ideology and Politics in the Ohio Country, 1780-1825, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1986.

(With Peter S. Onuf) The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1990.

(Editor, with Jeffrey P. Brown) The Pursuit of Public Power: Political Culture in Ohio, 1787-1861, Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1994.

Frontier Indiana, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 1996.

(With Elisabeth Israels Perry and Allan M. Winkler) America: Pathways to the Present: Civil War to the Present, Prentice Hall (Needham, MA), 1998.

(With Elisabeth Israels Perry and Allan M. Winkler) America: Pathways to the Present: America in the Twentieth Century, Prentice Hall (Needham, MA), 1998.

(Editor, with Fredrika J. Teute) Contact Points: American Frontiers from the Mohawk Valley to the Mississippi, 1750-1830, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1998.

(Editor and contributor, with Susan E. Gray) The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 2001.

America: Pathways to the Present: Modern American History (teacher's edition), Prentice Hall (Needham, MA), 2002.

Ohio: The History of a People, Ohio State University Press (Columbus, OH), 2002.

(With Fred Anderson) The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000, Viking (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor, with Stuart D. Hobbs) The Center of a Great Empire: The Ohio Country in the Early American Republic, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 2005.

(General editor, with Richard Sisson and Christian Zacher) The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, Indiana University Press (Bloomington, IN), 2007.

Contributor to books, including Pathways to the Old Northwest: An Observance of the Bicentennial of the Northwest Ordinance: Proceedings of a Conference held at Franklin College of Indiana, July 10-11, 1987, Indiana Historical Society, 1998; contributor to history journals. Coeditor of Old Northwest: A Journal of Regional Life and Letters.

SIDELIGHTS:

Andrew R.L. Cayton once told CA: "While my writing is primarily addressed to a scholarly audience, I undertook it for personal reasons. I grew up in the Ohio Valley and have always felt both fascinated and perplexed by its culture. I decided to study the early political history of the Midwest in order to get a fuller sense of where the region's political institutions came from. More broadly, I am interested in the question of midwestern regionalism.

"My academic research and publications are really nothing more than an effort to discover my own social and cultural origins. My maternal grandfather spent much of my childhood regaling me with long stories about his ancestors and the history of northern Kentucky. What I try to do is pretty much the same thing, although within the restrictions of an academic discipline."

Cayton has written or edited several books focusing primarily on the eighteenth and nineteenth-century history of trans-Appalachian North America. In his book Frontier Indiana, the author writes about various frontier figures in an effort to delineate the world outlook held by people on the frontier at that time. E.J. Fabyan, writing in History: Review of New Books, commented that "a wide cast of … characters are brought to new levels of historical evaluation and interpretation that reflect not only the mechanics of their lives but, in often unique ways, the meaning as well." Fabyan also noted the author's "fine writing and powerful prose."

Clayton collaborated with Fred Anderson to write The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000. In their book, the authors discuss their belief that the use of force to build empires has been the norm in the history of North America since 1500. A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted that the authors present a case "that from the start, America … has been augmented and empowered by … spasms of war fever." In addition to discussing specific wars, such as the Mexican-American War, the authors also profile leading figures in imperial ambition affecting North America, from Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and Wil- liam Penn to such well-known modern figures as Generals Douglas MacArthur and Colin Powell. Jay Freeman, writing in Booklist, called the Dominion of War "a well-written and important reinterpretation of our past." In History: Review of New Books, Ruud Janssens noted that "the authors have written excellent chapters on individual political and military leaders."

Cayton also served as coeditor with Susan E. Gray of The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History, Writing about the various contributors to the anthology, Michigan Historical Review contributor Ellen Nore noted: "Although the authors do not speak with a single voice, they offer consistently provocative views." The author is also coeditor with Stuart D. Hobbs of The Center of a Great Empire: The Ohio Country in the Early American Republic. The book presents various historians writing about the region between Lake Erie and the Ohio River around the closing years of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The contributors explore issues such as Indian relocation.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2004, Jay Freeman, review of The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000, p. 547.

Foreign Affairs, May-June, 2005, Walter Russell Mead, review of The Dominion of War, p. 138.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 1997, E.J. Fabyan, review of Frontier Indiana, p. 14; spring, 2005, Ruud Janssens, review of The Dominion of War, p. 92.

Kirkus Reviews, November 1, 2004, review of The Dominion of War, p. 1033.

Michigan Historical Review, fall, 2002, Ellen Nore, review of The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History, p. 189.

New Statesman, July 25, 2005, Michael Lind, review of The Dominion of War, p. 52.

Parameters, spring, 2006, Robert L. Bateman, review of The Dominion of War, p. 143.

Publishers Weekly, November 22, 2004, review of The Dominion of War, p. 52.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2005, review of The Center of a Great Empire: The Ohio Country in the Early American Republic.

Washington Post Book World, January 30, 2005, by Andrew J. Bacevich, review of The Dominion of War, p. BW05.