Dr. Bradley J. Birzer received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1990 and his Ph.D. in American History from Indiana University in January 1999. Currently Amos Kirk Chair in history and director of American studies at Hillsdale College, Michigan, Birzer specializes in the history of the Jacksonian period, the American Civil War, the American West, and the American Indians. He is a senior fellow with the Center for the American Idea (Texas). He has recently edited a collection of James Fenimore Cooper's works of political and social criticism, and is co-author of a forthcoming encyclopedia of the American West.

His publications include:

Encyclopedia of the American West (New York: John Wiley and Sons, forthcoming, 2002), co-written with Larry Schweikart.

Social Criticism of James Fenimore Cooper (Chicago: Eagle Books, forthcoming, 2001), co-edited with John Willson.

"'The Only Just Literary Critic': The Christian Gifts of J.R.R. Tolkien," New Oxford Review (forthcoming, 2001).

"South Dakota" and "North Dakota," entries in New Catholic Encyclopedia (forthcoming, 2002).

"'An appearance of lively industry about the place': Choctaw Economic Success in Indian Territory, 1831-1861," Continuity: A Journal of History 24 (Autumn 2000).

"French Imperial Remnants on the Middle Ground: The Strange Case of August de la Balme and Charles Beaubien," Journal of the Illinois Historical Society 93 (Summer 2000): 135-54.

"On the Edge of Empire: Miami Chief John B. Richardville as Old Northwest Entrepreneur," chapter in R. David Edmunds, ed., People of Persistence: The Woodland Peoples of the Great Lakes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming).

"Expansive Creative Destruction: Entrepreneurship in the American Wests," Western Historical Quarterly 30 (Spring 1999): 45-63. Nominated for the 1999 Don D. Walker Prize for Best Article in Western American Studies.

"The Private West: Voluntary Associations in the American Wests," chapter in Michael Allen and Mary L. Hanneman, eds., Frontiers of Western History: Origins, Evolution, and the Future of Western History (Carmel, Ind.: Simon & Schuster, 1999).

"The Miami Indians of Chicago," Encyclopedia of Chicago (Chicago: Newberry Library, forthcoming).

"Silver, Discontent, and Conspiracy: The Ideology of the Western Republican Revolt, 1890-1901," Pacific Historical Review 64 (May 1995): 243-65.

"Worshiping the `Strange God': Fred T. Dubois and the Fight Against Repeal in 1893," Idaho Yesterdays 38 (Winter 1995): 2-11.