Research Interests

Elizabeth Cobbs received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She holds the Melbern G. Glasscock Chair at A&M, teaching U.S. and world history. A New York Times bestselling author, she has published eight books, including traditional monographs and historical fiction. Her most recent are The Tubman Command (Arcade 2019), about the Civil War military service of Harriet Tubman and The Hello Girls: America’ First Women Soldiers (Harvard 2017), about World War One and women’s suffrage.  Her first book, The Rich Neighbor Policy: Rockefeller and Kaiser in Brazil (Yale 1992) won the Allan Nevins Prize and the Stuart L. Bernath Prize. Her first novel, Broken Promises: A Novel of the Civil War (Random House 2011) won the San Diego Book Award and received Director’s Mention for the David J. Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. In 2020, she and co-producer James Shelley won a Los Angeles Regional Emmy and an international Telly Award for their public television documentary on the history and future of work, CyberWork and the American Dream. Their first PBS film, American Umpire, on the history and future of U.S. grand strategy, won “Best Short Documentary” at the San Diego G.I. Film Festival in 2017. Dr. Cobbs’s other books include The Hamilton Affair (Arcade, 2016), American Umpire (Harvard 2013), All You Need is Love: The Peace Corps and the 1960s (Harvard 2000), and four editions of the textbook Major Problems in American History (Cengage 2002-2015). She has written essays for the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Reuters, Jerusalem Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, San Jose Mercury, San Diego Union, Washington Independent, Politico, and The Hill, as well as various academic journals.

Publications

Fearless Women (Harvard University Press, March 2023)

The Tubman Command (Arcade Publishing, 2019)

The Hello Girls: America’s First Women Soldiers (Harvard University Press, 2017)

The Hamilton Affair, A Novel (Arcade Publishing, 2016)

American Umpire (Harvard University Press, 2013)