Andrew Delbanco

Professor Andrew Delbanco
Andrew
Delbanco
Alexander Hamilton Professor
American Studies

Andrew Delbanco, winner of the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, is the author of The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War (2018), College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be (2012), Melville: His World and Work (2005), The Death of Satan (1995) and Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now (1997), among other books. Professor Delbanco's essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books and other journals, on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education. In 2001, he was named by Time Magazine as "America's Best Social Critic" and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In February 2012, President Barack Obama presented Professor Delbanco with the National Humanities Medal for his writings on higher education and the place classic authors hold in history and contemporary life.

Undergraduate Courses Taught
  • Literary-Cultural History