James West Davidson received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. from Yale University. A historian who has pursued a full-time writing career, he is the author of numerous books, among them "After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection" (with Mark H. Lytle), "The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth Century New England", and "Great Heart: the History of a Labrador Adventure" (with John Rugge). He is co-editor with Michael Stoff of the "Oxford New Narratives in American History", in which his most recent book appears: "'They Say': Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race".