Christian Gerard Appy (born April 5, 1955) is a professor of history at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

. He is widely known as a leading expert on the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

experience. The most recent of his three books on the subject is ''American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity''. It explores the war's impact on American politics, culture, and foreign policy from the 1950s to the Obama presidency.

Biography

Appy was born in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital city, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County, the mos ...

in 1955. In 1964, his family moved to

Westport, Connecticut Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut's Gold Coast. It is northeast of New York City. The town had a population of 27,141 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. History ...

, where he attended public school and graduated from Staples High School in 1973. At

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educati ...

, class of 1977, he majored in

American Studies American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field of scholarship that examines American literature, history, society, and culture. It traditionally incorporates literary criticism, historiography and critical theory. Schol ...

and wrote a prize-winning honors thesis on Appalachian coal miners. He received his Ph.D in the History of American Civilization at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1987. His dissertation received the Ralph Henry Gabriel dissertation prize from the American Studies Association. It went on to become his first book, ''Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam''. Appy taught at Harvard and

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

before accepting a position in the history department at the

in 2004. His book ''Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides'' is widely assigned to college students studying the

, due to its unique and nearly comprehensive view of those involved in the war. The book includes 135 oral histories drawn from 350 interviews conducted by Appy over the course of researching the book. ''Patriots'' won the 2004 Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction. Appy is now working on a book about

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the '' Pen ...

, the whistleblower who, in 1971, released to the press a 7000-page secret history of the Vietnam War—the

Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 ...

—that exposed decades of official lies about the nature and conduct of the war. Appy’s work on Ellsberg was inspired by the 2019 acquisition of Ellsberg’s papers by the University of Massachusetts—a collection of 500 boxes of materials. In 2020-21, Appy helped organize a series of events to mark the 50th anniversary of the Pentagon Papers’ release—a year-long seminar, the creation of a website (the Ellsberg Archive Project), a series of podcasts by The GroundTruth Project, and a two-day online conference with more than two-dozen high profile scholars, journalists, former policymakers, whistleblowers, and activists. In 2022, Appy became the director of the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy at UMass. At the University of Massachusetts, Appy has received the Distinguished Teaching Award, the Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award, and the Chancellor's Medal.

Works

* * * * ''Vietnam: The Definitive Oral History Told from All Sides'', Ebury, 2006, *

References

External links

Christian Appy
on

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Boston Review
1955 births Living people American male non-fiction writers Amherst College alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty

Historians A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Staples High School alumni {{US-historian-stub