Ransom, Roger L. 1938–

PERSONAL: Born 1938. Education: Reed College, B.A., 1959; University of Washington, Ph.D., 1963.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of History, 1212 HMNSS Bldg., University of California, Riverside, 900 University Ave., Riverside, CA 92521. E-mail—roger.ransom@ucr.edu.

CAREER: University of California at Riverside, professor of economics, 1968–84, professor of history, 1984–.

MEMBER: Economic History Association (president).

AWARDS, HONORS: Arthur Cole Award, Economic History Association, 1986; Guggenheim fellowship, 1987–88; Clio Award, Cliometrics Society, 1988; distinguished teaching award, University of California at Riverside, 2002–03.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With William Breit) The Academic Scribblers: American Economists in Collision, Holt (New York, NY), 1971, third edition, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1998.

One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1977, second edition, 2001.

Coping with Capitalism: The Economic Transformation of the United States, Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ), 1981.

(Editor, with Richard Sutch and Gary M. Walton) Explorations in the New Economic History: Essays in Honor of Douglass C. North, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1982.

Conflict and Compromise: The Political Economy of Slavery, Emancipation, and the American Civil War, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Roger L. Ransom is a scholar and professor whose specialty is the economic history of the United States and the history of the United States during the nineteenth century, especially during the Civil War. In The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been he presents his ideas on what the modern world would be like if the South had won the war, and considers several points that could have changed the course of the conflict. If Confederate leader Stonewall Jackson had survived his wounds, for example, he might have won victory for the South. Key battles or even delays in advances of federal troops at crucial junctures could also have altered the course of the war, according to Ransom. The author goes on to imagine what a victorious South would have been like, and his vision includes a mutual defense agreement being signed with Great Britain that would probably have led to later military engagement with the North during World War I. John Carver Edwards, a reviewer for Library Journal, described The Confederate States of America as a "wild ride" that provides "provocative and compelling" material. A Kirkus Reviews writer recommended it as "an intriguing exercise in counterfactual history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2005, review of The Confederate States of America: What Might Have Been, p. 169.

Library Journal, March 1, 2005, John Carver Edwards, review of The Confederate States of America, p. 98.

ONLINE

University of California at Riverside Web site, http://history.ucr.edu/ (October 12, 2005), biographical information about Roger L. Ransom.