詹姆斯·M·麦克弗森

詹姆斯·M·“吉姆”·麦克弗森（英语：James M. "Jim" McPherson，1936年10月11日—）是研究美国内战的历史学家，普林斯顿大学美国历史乔治·亨利·戴维斯荣誉教授，《不列颠百科全书》编辑委员会委员。

生平

出生于北达科他州谷市，毕业于圣彼得高中，1958年在明尼苏达州圣彼得古斯塔夫·阿道夫学院以优等生毕业，获文学学士学位，1963年在约翰斯·霍普金斯大学获博士学位，导师是C·范·沃德伍德。

麦克弗森的作品《争取平等的斗争》于1965年获阿尼斯菲尔德-沃尔夫奖。1988年，他出版了普利策奖获奖作品《为自由而战的呐喊》。1998年的著作《为事业和同志：内战中人为何而战》获林肯奖。2009年，他的《被战争审判：亚伯拉罕·林肯任总司令》获林肯奖。

麦克弗森被国家人文基金会任命为2000年杰斐逊人文学科讲师。国家人文基金会主席威廉·弗里斯在宣布麦克弗森入选时声明说：

詹姆斯·M·麦克弗森帮助数百万美国人更好地了解了美国内战的意义和遗产。通过建立学术的最高标准和建立关于内战的公共教育，以及在保护国家战场的运动中发挥领导作用，他为美国的历史意识做出了杰出贡献。

2003年任美国历史学会会长，2007年，因在军事史上的终身成就获十万美元的普利兹克军事图书馆文学奖，是该奖项的第一位获奖者。2007年，因在军事史上的终身成就而被军事历史学会授予塞缪尔·埃利奥特·莫里森奖。2009年，当选为美国文理科学院院士。

家庭

目前居住在新泽西州普林斯顿。他娶了帕特里夏，他们有一个孩子。

James Munro McPherson (born October 11, 1936) is an American historian specializing in the American Civil War. He is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. McPherson was the president of the American Historical Association in 2003.

Early life and education

Born in Valley City, North Dakota, McPherson graduated from St. Peter High School in St. Peter, Minnesota, and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1958 from Gustavus Adolphus College, also in St. Peter, from which he graduated magna cum laude. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1963, where he studied under C. Vann Woodward.

Career

McPherson joined the faculty of Princeton in 1962. His works include The Struggle for Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction, awarded the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1965. In 1988, he published his Pulitzer-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. His 1990 book, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution argues that the emancipation of slaves amounts to a second American Revolution. McPherson's 1998 book, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War, received the Lincoln Prize. In 2002, he published both a scholarly book, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862, and a history of the American Civil War for children, Fields of Fury.

In 2007, McPherson published This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War, a series of essays about the American Civil War. One essay describes the huge difficulty of negotiation when regime change is a war aim on either side of a conflict. "For at least the past two centuries, nations have usually found it harder to end a war than to start one. Americans learned that bitter lesson in Vietnam, and apparently having forgotten it, we're forced to learn it all over again in Iraq." One of McPherson's examples is the American Civil War, in which both the Union and the Confederacy sought regime change. It took four years to end the war.

There are all kinds of myths that a people has about itself, some positive, some negative, some healthy and some not healthy. I think that one job of the historian is to try to cut through some of those myths and get closer to some kind of reality. So that people can face their current situation realistically, rather than mythically. I guess that's my sense of what a historian ought to do.

Among McPherson's other books are The Negro's Civil War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the War for the Union (1965), The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP (1975), and Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (1996).

Honors

McPherson was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1991. In 1995, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member David McCullough.

McPherson was named the 2000 Jefferson Lecturer in the humanities by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In making the announcement of McPherson's selection, NEH Chairman William R. Ferris said:

James M. McPherson has helped millions of Americans better understand the meaning and legacy of the American Civil War. By establishing the highest standards for scholarship and public education about the Civil War and by providing leadership in the movement to protect the nation's battlefields, he has made an exceptional contribution to historical awareness in America.

In 2002, McPherson received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.

In 2007, he was awarded the $100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for lifetime achievement in military history and was the first recipient of the prize. In 2007, he was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement in military history given by the Society for Military History. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.