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About

Books

Public Facing Essays

Edited Volumes

Academic Articles

History in the Headlines

Online Lectures

Media

Contact

About

Books

Public Facing Essays

Edited Volumes

Academic Articles

History in the Headlines

Online Lectures

Media

Contact

History in the Headlines

Online Lectures

Media

Contact

Public Facing Essays

Jim in conversation with Scott Hancok (Gettysburg College), Drew Gilpin Faust (Harvard), David Blight (Yale) and Stephanie McCurry (Columbia) on the past, present, and future of Civil War Studies

Edited Volumes

Reckoning with History

With essays by Michael Green, Katrina Vanden Heuval, April E. Holm, Kellie Carter Jackson, Matthew Taylor Rafferty, Elizabeth A. Herbin-Triant, and Ashli White.

Beyond Freedom

With essays by Justin Behrend, Carole Emberton, Eric Foner, Thavolia Glymph, Chandra Manning, Kate Masur, Richard Newman, James Oakes, Susan E. O’Donovan, Hannah Rosen, and Brenda E. Stevenson

Connexions

With essays by Sharon Block, Susan Cahn, Stephanie M.H. Camp, Ian Carter, Ernesto Chávez, Marisa J. Fuentes, Wanda S. Pillow, Marc Stein and Deborah Gray White

Why We Write

With essays by Catherine Clinton, Caitlin Crowell, John D’Emilio, Drew Gilpin Faust, Jennifer Fronc, Jill Lepore, Jennifer Morgan, Timothy Patrick McCarthy, and Jung Pak

Taking Back the Academy

With essays by Kathleen M. Brown, Drucilla Cornell, Eileen Egan, Glenda Gilmore, Nancy Hewitt, Jesse Lemisch, Vania Markarian, John McMillian, David Rosner, and Anita Seth

Academic Articles

As part of a graduation tradition at Gettysburg College, Jim received a “stole of gratitude” from one of his advisees.

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History in the Headlines

In 2019, Jim Downs and Catherine Clinton co-founded History in the Headlines, a series that brings leading scholars and thinkers together to engage in meaningful conversations about polarizing topics. Downs has also edited volumes in the series.

An enlightening, history-informed conversation about the January 6 insurrection

On January 6, 2021, more than two thousand rioters stormed the doors of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., hoping to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power from former president Donald Trump to his successor, Joseph Biden. The deaths, property damage, and vicious rampage that ensued were witnessed on live television as an unprecedented attack on the democratic process and those who strive to protect it.

A compelling conversation about the history of voter suppression with Stacey Abrams, Heather Cox Richardson and other leading thinkers.

Historians have long been engaged in telling the story of the struggle for the vote. In the wake of recent contested elections, the suppression of the vote has returned to the headlines, as awareness of the deep structural barriers to the ballot, particularly for poor, black, and Latino voters, has called attention to the historical roots of issues related to voting access.

Perhaps most notably, former state legislator Stacey Abrams’s campaign for Georgia's gubernatorial race drew national attention after she narrowly lost to then-secretary of state Brian Kemp, who had removed hundreds of thousands of voters from the official rolls. After her loss, Abrams created Fair Fight, a multimillion-dollar initiative to combat voter suppression in twenty states.

U.S. History at the 250th. From the Revolution to the History Wars.

A conversation with Sandra Enriquez, Sandy Grande, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Annette Gordon Reed, Erika Lee, Robert Parkinson, Marc Stein, William Sturkey

An enlightening conversation between top historians on memorialization, the proper role of public intellectuals, and how history happens

Nine killed in Charleston church shooting. White supremacists demonstrate in Charlottesville. Monuments decommissioned in New Orleans and Chapel Hill. The headlines keep coming, and the debate rolls on. How should we contend with our troubled history as a nation? What is the best way forward?

In this unprecedented volume, leading thinkers come together to debate these―and many other―issues. Their conversation shows that U.S history is not just about what happened but who gets to tell the story and the political implications of the narratives we tell.

The participants include two Pulitzer Prize winners: Nikole Hannah-Jones, who created the 1619 Project and ignited a national conversation about slavery and the nation’s founding; and Annette Gordon-Reed, who documented Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings. The other specialists include experts in Asian American, civil rights, Native American, Latino, LGBT, and early American history.

Order your copy of U.S. History at the 250th from either Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Book Shop

Sandra Enríquez, Marc Stein, William Sturkey, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Jim Downs.

Barnes & Noble book launch at the 82nd Street store in May.
Pulitzer Prize– and Emmy Award–winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, History in the Headlines contributors Julian Zelizer and Joanne Freeman (from the January 6 volume), and Catherine Clinton, co-editor of the 250th anniversary volume.

Courtesy of Jaci Downs Photography

Courtesy of Jaci Downs Photography

Check out a conversation with Jim Downs and Julian Zelizer about History in the Headlines and the history wars on Julian's Substack:

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Media

Jim has been featured in the New York Times for his first book, Sick from Freedom: African American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Richard Perry, The New York Times

Liberation as Death Sentence

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Jim in The New York Times with Stacey Abrams, Heather Cox Richardson, Carol Anderson, Kevin Kruse, Heather Ann Thompson for their book on Voter Suppression.

For Stacey Abrams, a Date With History— or at Least the People Who Write It

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Courtesy of Jaci Downs Photography

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Jim Downs, a history professor at Gettysburg College, is one of 2025’s Guggenheim Fellows.

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Jim in The Hartford Courant when he was awarded a Mellon New Directions Fellowship, which allowed him, after tenure, to return to school and gain training in medical anthropology and global health at Harvard University.

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Online Lectures

C-SPAN

Jim was in conversation with Isabel Wilkerson, Eric Foner, and Khalil Gibran Muhammad on the history of Emancipation to the Great Migration

Emancipation & the Great Migration

Jim was in conversation with Lázaro Lima, Chair of the Department of Africana, Puerto Rican and Latino Studies and Professor of Latinx Studies

Stand by Me

Sick from Freedom

Jim presented his analysis of the smallpox epidemic from Sick from Freedom as an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer at the UT Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine.

YouTube

Jim on Politics and Prose (P&P Live) with Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble

P&P Live!

Jim giving a book talk on Maladies of Empire at Harvard Medical School

Better Together Dialogue

Jim giving a book talk at Springfield College

Maladies of Empire Lecture

History Extra Podcast

Jim on the History Extra Podcast (UK) How Slavery and Empire Shaped Epidemiology

History Extra Podcast

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