Harry L. Watson

Harry L. Watson is the Atlanta Distinguished Professor in Southern Culture in the History Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A native of Greensboro, North Carolina, he received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and his doctorate from Northwestern before joining the UNC-CH History Department in 1976. His teaching and research interests focus on American political history, the early American republic, and the antebellum South. He served as director of the UNC Center for the Study of the American South from 1999 until 2012 and editor of its journal, Southern Cultures, from 1993 until. 2019. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay: Democracy and Development in Antebellum America (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1998), Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America (2nd ed.; Hill & Wang, 2006), and Building the American Republic: Volume 1, A Narrative History to 1877 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2018).