Prof Robert Cook

Biography

After spending an action-packed gap year in the American midwest working in a paint store and riding the Greyhound, I managed to gain education at the universities of Warwick (BA) and Oxford (D.Phil). My doctorate was on the early Republican Party in Iowa which oddly failed to become a bestseller. I moved to Sussex in 2007 after teaching American history at Sheffield University for seventeen years. I am a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Organization of American Historians and the British American Nineteenth Century Historians group, and a devoted supporter of Aston Villa (sometime European champions and still the best football team in Birmingham).

Role

Professor of American History and head of American Studies

Although I consider myself primarily as a historian of the United States during the era of the Civil War, my research interests lie at the intersection of race, politics and society in both the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. I have published five books to date including popular surveys of the civil rights movement and what used to be called 'the Middle Period' of US history as well as a well-received study of the Civil War Centennial of the 1960s which was shortlisted for the 2008 Lincoln Prize.  My latest book is a biography of the influential Republican politician, US Senator William Pitt Fessenden (1806-1869), who played a leading role in developing federal policy for the post-emancipation South during Reconstruction. It was published by Louisiana State University Press in 2011. Future research plans include a history of American Civil War memory from Appomattox to the Sesquicentennial, a collection of essays on southern secession to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press (the third volume in the Sussex lecure series organised by the Marcus Cunliffe Centre), and a concise study of the US Senate special committee that was raised to investigate the John Brown's raid on the US armoury at Harpers Ferry in October 1859.

I teach undergraduate courses on Civil War America, the African-American experience and the United States in the twentieth century. I also supervise postgraduates in a range of topics including US-Mexican relations during the American Civil War and conservative women's activism in the 1950s. I welcome enquiries from prospective MPhil and DPhil candidates working on topics in nineteenth- and twentieth-century US history, especially (but not exclusively) Civil War-era politics and society, Civil War memory and the modern civil rights movement.

Student Consultation

Office/Feedback Hours in Term 2 are 1.30-3.30 on Fridays. 

Cook, Robert J, Barney, William L and Varon, Elizabeth R (2013) Secession winter: when the Union fell apart. The Marcus Cunliffe lecture series . Johns Hopkins University Press , Baltimore, MD. ISBN 9781421408958

Cook, Robert (2013) Bruce Catton, middlebrow culture and the liberal search for purpose in Cold War America. Journal of American Studies, 47 (10). pp. 109-126. ISSN 0021-8758

Cook, Robert (2013) Bruce Catton, middlebrow culture, and the liberal search for purpose in cold war America. Journal of American Studies, 47 (1). pp. 109-126. ISSN 0021-8758

Cook, Robert J (2013) Fanfare for the common man? Political participation in Jacksonian America. In: A companion to the era of Andrew Jackson. Blackwell companions to American history . Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, pp. 532-548. ISBN 9781444335415

Cook, Robert (2013) Ordeal of the union: Allan Nevins, the Civil war centennial and the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s. In: Reconfiguring the Union: Civil War Transformations. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137336477 (In Press)

Cook, Robert, Noe, Kenneth, Shoaf, Dana, Weber, Jennifer and Sutherland, Daniel E (2011) Historians' Forum: The American Civil War's Centennial vs. The Sesquicentennial. Civil War History, 57 (4). pp. 380-402. ISSN 0009-8078

Cook, Robert J (2010) The Fight for Black Suffrage in the War of the Rebellion. In: The American Civil War: The War Between the States (2nd Ed). Routledge, New York and London, pp. 209-227. ISBN 9780415990868

Cook, Robert J (2009) Grimes, James Wilson. In: The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, pp. 196-199. ISBN 9781587296857

Cook, Robert J (2009) Kasson, John Adams. In: The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, pp. 275-276. ISBN 9781587296857

Cook, Robert J (2009) Kirkwood, Samuel Jordan. In: The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, pp. 286-288. ISBN 9781587296857

Cook, Robert J (2009) Merrill, Samuel. In: The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, pp. 362-363. ISBN 9781587296857

Cook, Robert J (2009) Wilson, James Falconer. In: The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, pp. 563-565. ISBN 9781587296857

Cook, Robert (1997) Sweet Land of Liberty? The African-American Struggle for Civil Rights in the Twentieth Century. Studies in Modern History . Addison Wesley Longman Ltd., London and New York. ISBN 9780582215320

Cook, Robert (1997) Awake, the Beloved Country: A Comparative Perspective on the Visionary Leadership of Martin Luther King and Albert Lutuli. South African Historical Journal, 36 (1). pp. 113-135. ISSN 0258-2473

Cook, Robert (1995) "The Grave of All My Comforts": William Pitt Fessenden as Secretary of the Treasury, 1864-65. Civil War History, 41 (3). pp. 208-226. ISSN 0009-8078

Cook, Robert (1994) Baptism of Fire: The Republican Party in Iowa, 1838-1878. Iowa State University Press, Ames. ISBN 9780813819389

Cook, Robert J and Salotti, Paul S (1987) Nascent Republicanism in Iowa: the Relational Database and Content Addressing Hardware. In: Databases in the Humanities and Social Sciences, 1985. Paradigm Press, Osprey, FL, pp. 435-452. ISBN 9780931351075