2-20-08

Media Release

Professor Picked as Top Young Historian

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Jeff Sklansky, an associate professor at Oregon State University, has been picked as one of the top young historians in the country by the History News Network.

Historians were selected for the honor based on accomplishments in their profession.

Sklansky teaches American intellectual and cultural history in OSU’s Department of History. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988, he received his master’s and Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, where he did his doctoral work on the ideological roots of modern American social science. He joined the OSU faculty in 1997.

His first book, “The Soul’s Economy: Market Society and Selfhood in American Thought, 1820-1920” (University of North Carolina Press), won the 2004 Cheiron Book Prize from Cheiron, the International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences.

Sklansky is currently working on a book titled “The Money Question: Currency in American Political Thought, 1700-1900,” which traces the struggle over what should serve as money, who should control its creation and circulation, and according to what rules.

His work has been supported by year-long fellowships from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University, and the American Council of Learned Societies.

He also is also editor of the book series, “New Studies in American Intellectual and Cultural History,” from Johns Hopkins University Press.

History News Network is a nonprofit corporation based in Washington. It aspires to put news in a historical context by publishing articles written by historians on current events topics. Its Web site is: http://hnn.us.