Miller, Donald L.

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MILLER, Donald L.

PERSONAL: Male. Education: University of Maryland, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Lafayette College, Easton, PA, John Henry McCracken professor of history; host, A Biography of America, Public Broadcasting System; documentary film maker.

AWARDS, HONORS: Student Government Superior Teaching Award; Great Lakes Book Award, for City of the Century; All Souls' College fellow; Pulitzer Prize nomination and National Book Award nomination, 1996, for City of the Century; American Professor of the Year nomination, 1996.

WRITINGS:

The New American Radicalism: Alfred M. Bingham and Non-Marxian Insurgency in the New Deal Era, Kennikat Press (Port Washington, NY), 1979.

(With Richard E. Sharpless) The Kingdom of Coal: Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, PA), 1985.

(Editor) The Lewis Mumford Reader, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 1986.

Lewis Mumford: A Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (New York, NY), 1989.

City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.

The Story of World War II, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

Contributor to New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and American Heritage.

SIDELIGHTS: Donald L. Miller is John Henry MacCracken professor of history at Lafayette College. His books have been nominated for many major American literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Lewis Mumford: A Life is a biography of the architecture and technology critic, historian, and writer who never actually studied architecture or technology in a classroom, but became well known and successful in his field. Progressive Architecture contributor Leonard K. Eaton commented, "Miller's writing is elegant, and he is generally on the mark when he characterizes Mumford's thoughts on architectural and planning issues."

In City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America Miller provides the history of Chicago. Miller explains how Chicago, which began as a fur trading outpost in 1830, evolved into a major railroad, livestock, and manufacturing center in less than a century. His focus is on the individuals who helped to develop Chicago and its industries, such as Philip Armour, a meatpacker; Ward and Sears, founders of the first mail-order business; Ellis Chesbrough, an engineer; and George Pullman, a railroad owner. A Publishers Weekly contributor praised the book as "A glorious anthem to a tumultuous city."

In The Story of World War II Miller includes interviews with soldiers who fought in World War II, as well as hundreds of photographs. Booklist contributor Jay Freeman noted, "An engrossing and frequently stunning portrait of men in war."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlantic, July, 1989, Paul Goldberger, review of Lewis Mumford: A Life, p. 88.

Booklist, April 15, 1996, Bonnie Smothers, review of City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America, p. 1418; November 15, 2001, Jay Freeman, review of The Story of World War II, p. 545.

Historian, winter, 1998, Melvin G. Holli, review of City of the Century, p. 395.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, autumn, 1997, Carl Smith, review of City of the Century, p. 311.

New Leader, November-December, 2001, William L. O'Neill, review of The Story of World War II, p. 25.

Progressive Architecture, July 1990, Leonard K. Eaton, review of Lewis Mumford, p. 102.

Publishers Weekly, February 12, 1996, review of City of the Century, p. 64.

Technology Review, February-March, 1990, Robert Howard, review of Lewis Mumford, p. 76.