Christian Appy

associate professor, history, MIT

Chris is currently a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. While working on his BA in American Studies at Amherst College during the 1970s, Chris was inspired by a wave of new historical work that was exploring the lives of poor and working-class people and a host of other subjects long ignored by conventional scholars. He subsequently wrote an honors thesis on Appalachian coal miners. Chris continued on to graduate studies at Harvard University, getting a PhD in the History of American Civilization. His dissertation on American combat soldiers in the Vietnam War received the American Studies Associations prize for the years best dissertation in the field and became the basis for his book *Working-Class War*, which was published by the University of North Carolina Press and has been used in many college and university courses on modern U.S. history.