Cornell, Saul

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Cornell, Saul

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended the University of Sussex, 1980-81; Amherst College, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1982; University of Pennsylvania, M.A., 1985, Ph.D., 1989.

ADDRESSES:

Home—OH. Office—Department of History, Ohio State University, 263 Dulles Hall, 230 W. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210; fax: 614-292-2282. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Professor and writer. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, instructor in history, 1986; College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, assistant professor of history, 1989-91; Ohio State University, Columbus, assistant professor, 1991-97, associate professor of history, 1997—. Thomas Jefferson Chair, University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 1995.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, University of Pennsylvania; Colonial Daughters of Pennsylvania Prize in Early American History; Fulbright Lecturing Award, 1995; Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation fellow, 1998; Choice Outstanding Academic Book, 2000; Triennial Award for the best book on the American Revolution, Society of the Cincinnati, 2001; American Council of Learned Societies fellow, 2001; National Endowment for the Humanities fellow, 2003-04.

WRITINGS:

The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828, University of North Carolina Press/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture (Chapel Hill, NC), 1999.

(Editor and author of introduction) Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect?, Bedford/St. Martin's Press (Boston, MA), 2000.

A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to publications, including Journal of American History, American Studies, William and Mary Quarterly, William and Mary Law Review, and Constitutional Commentary.

SIDELIGHTS:

Saul Cornell is a leading expert on the Second Amendment, which imparts the right to keep and bear arms. In addition to editing a compilation of essays on the topic, Cornell penned an examination of the amendment's original intent based on the issues facing the Founding Fathers. A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America was critically praised by many reviewers who considered it among the most comprehensive and well-researched books on the subject. A contributor to BuzzFlash remarked: "Saul Cornell has achieved something extraordinary—he has finally laid to rest the debate over the Second Amendment—something no other historian has been able to do…. His arguments are balanced, his writing is sharp and articulate, and his narrative is fascinating." Library Journal reviewer Mary Jane Brustman found it an "intelligent, carefully rendered history of gun policy." New York Law Journal critic Walter Barthold called the book a "diligent, thoughtful exposition of the subject." In a review for the Junto Society Web site, Monty Rainey commented: "Cornell's brilliant work here not only restores the Second Amendment to its original meaning, but explains in detail how we arrived at such a convoluted position on guns as we find ourselves today."

Cornell's first book expanded on the topic of his doctoral thesis, "The Political Thought and Culture of the Anti-Federalists." The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828 is a historical analysis of the movement's influence in the early days of the American government and in the formation of the first political parties. Historian reviewer Anthony J. Connors wrote that the book "provides a rich guide through the complexities of the original anti-federalist coalition and clearly establishes the foundations and the limits of legitimate dissent in American politics." Hendrik Hartog in the Journal of Southern History found that The Other Founders is "a transformative work of constitutional history, a work that situates Anti-Federalism both in terms of what came before and what came after."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Historian, spring, 2001, Anthony J. Connors, review of The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828, p. 631.

Journal of Southern History, November, 2001, Hendrik Hartog, review of The Other Founders, p. 837.

Library Journal, August 1, 2006, Mary Jane Brustman, review of A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America, p. 102.

New York Law Journal, August 7, 2006, Walter Barthold, review of A Well-Regulated Militia.