Summerhill, Thomas 1962-

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Summerhill, Thomas 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born July 16, 1962. Education: State University of New York, College at Cortland, B.A., 1984; Syracuse University, M.A., 1986; University of California, San Diego, Ph.D., 1993.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Michigan State University, Department of History, 301 Morrill Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824. E-mail—summerhi@msu.edu.

CAREER:

Academic and historian. Drake University, Des Moines, IA, assistant professor of history, 1995-97; Michigan State University, East Lansing, assistant professor of history, 1997-2004, associate professor of history, 2004—; Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, adjunct curator, 2000—. Regents fellow, University of California, 1987-88; dissertation research fellow, University of California, San Diego, 1990-91; graduate fellow, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, 1991; visiting lecturer at Babson College, 1993, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 1994, Boston College, 1993-94, and the University of California, San Diego, 1994-95; postdoctoral fellow, Yale University Institute for Social and Policy Studies, Program in Agrarian Studies, 1996-97.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Albert J. Beveridge grant, American Historical Association, 1995, for research in the history of the Western hemisphere; research grant, Michigan Department of Transportation, 2000-04, for the Michigan Agricultural Heritage Project.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with James C. Scott) Transatlantic Rebels: Agrarian Radicalism in Comparative Context, Michigan State University Press (East Lansing, MI), 2004.

Harvest of Dissent: Agrarianism in Nineteenth-Century New York, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2005.

Contributor to academic journals and periodicals, including American Historical Review, H-Net, Journal of American History, Canadian Review of American Studies, New England Quarterly, Journal of Southern History, Western Historical Quarterly, Journal of Economic History, and New York History. Member of the editorial board for the Journal of Radicalism.

SIDELIGHTS:

Thomas Summerhill is an academic and historian. Born on July 16, 1962, he earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1984 from the State University of New York, College at Cortland. Summerhill went on to earn a master of arts degree from Syracuse University in 1986. In 1993 he had completed a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego.

After completing his dissertation, Summerhill served as a visiting lecturer at a number of institutions across the United States, including at Babson College, the University of Massachusetts in Boston, Boston College, and the University of California, San Diego. He then worked as an assistant professor of history at Drake University. Summerhill consecutively served as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University's Institute for Social and Policy Studies, Program in Agrarian Studies from 1996 to 1997. That same year he began working as an assistant professor of history at Michigan State University and was promoted to associate professor of history in 2004. Since 2000 Summerhill has additionally served as an adjunct curator with the Michigan State University Museum. His research interests include nineteenth-century American history, particularly the Civil War and Reconstruction era, as well as political, social, rural, popular, and grassroots political movements.

As a writer, Summerhill has published articles in a number of academic journals and periodicals. These include the American Historical Review, H-Net, Journal of American History, Canadian Review of American Studies, New England Quarterly, Journal of Southern History, Western Historical Quarterly, Journal of Economic History, and New York History. He edited his first book, Transatlantic Rebels: Agrarian Radicalism in Comparative Context, in 2004 with James C. Scott.

Summerhill published his second book, Harvest of Dissent: Agrarianism in Nineteenth-Century New York, through the University of Illinois Press in 2005. The book discusses farm strategies and political economies of farmers in Delaware Ostego, and Schoharie Counties of central New York state in the nineteenth century. Stephen Vincent, writing on H-Civ War, commented that "all in all, Harvest of Dissent deserves considerable praise for its ambitious and largely successful effort" to cover its intended subject. Vincent concluded his review, stating: "To Summerhill's credit, each chapter begins with a clear, thoughtful discourse of the coming discussion's place within broader historiographic interpretations. Within the chapters' bodies, however, many opportunities to broaden the analysis outward are lost, leaving the reader with a text that is far more narrow and geared towards a smaller range of specialists than is necessary. In the end, the book often reads like a lightly revised dissertation with all the seeming cautiousness and limitations that characterize many scholars' first monographs." Bruce Gardner, reviewing the book in the Historian, commented that "anyone interested in U.S. history will be entertained as well as enlightened by this book."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Agricultural History, June 22, 2007, Preston E. Pierce, review of Harvest of Dissent: Agrarianism in Nineteenth-Century New York, p. 422.

American Historical Review, December 1, 2005, John Tutino, review of Transatlantic Rebels: Agrarian Radicalism in Comparative Context, p. 1485; February 1, 2007, Connie L. Lester, review of Harvest of Dissent, p. 200.

Business History Review, June 22, 2006, Martin Bruegel, review of Harvest of Dissent, p. 367.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, March 1, 2006, K.G. Wilkinson, review of Harvest of Dissent, p. 1291.

Historian, December 22, 2006, Bruce Gardner, review of Harvest of Dissent, p. 847.

Journal of American History, June 1, 2006, Donald H. Parkerson, review of Harvest of Dissent, p. 212.