Elizabeth Cobbs

Elizabeth Cobbs (born July 28, 1956) is an American historian, commentator and author of nine books including three novels, a history textbook and five non-fiction works. She retired from Melbern G. Glasscock Chair in American History at Texas A&M University (2015-2023), following upon a four-decade career in California where she began working for the Center for Women's Studies and Services as a teenager. She writes on the subjects of feminism and human rights, and the history of U.S. foreign relations. She is known for advancing the controversial theory that the United States is not an empire, challenging a common scholarly assumption. She asserts instead that the federal government has played the role of “umpire” at home and abroad since 1776.

She is also credited as a screenwriter on the film adaptation of her book American Umpire, as a producer on the film adaptation of her book The Hello Girls, and as a screenwriter and producer of the public television documentary CyberWork and the American Dream: The History and Future of Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Biography Cobbs was born on July 28, 1956 in Gardena, California. Cobbs studied literature at the University of California, San Diego and graduated summa cum laude in 1983. She earned her M.A. and PhD in American History from Stanford University in 1988. While at Stanford, she won the David Potter Award for Outstanding History Graduate Student. Following graduation, she won the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians for the Best Dissertation on U.S. History.

She taught nine years at the University of San Diego, becoming chair of the History Department, and then accepted the Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations at San Diego State University. She has been a Fulbright scholar in Ireland and a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C and a Senior Fellow of Stanford's Hoover Institution.

Cobbs served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2008. She also served two terms on the Historical Advisory Committee of the US State Department from 1999 to 2006, advising on transparency in government and the declassification of top secret documents and transparency in government.

Professional background

Cobbs started her writing career at the age of 15 as a community organizer and publications coordinator for the Center for Women's Studies and Services in Southern California. During this period, she founded and headed several innovative projects for adults and young people supported partly by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. She received the international John D. Rockefeller Youth Award in 1979, at the age of 23 for her services to humanity.

Books and publications

Cobbs has written over 40 articles for media such as The Jerusalem Post, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, Reuters, China Daily News, National Public Radio, Washington Independent, San Diego Union Tribune, The Washington Post, and several other publications. Her first nonfiction book was The Rich Neighbor Policy; she has since written five more books about American history and politics.

The Rich Neighbor Policy: Rockefeller and Kaiser in Brazil Yale University Press published The Rich Neighbor Policy in 1992. The book focuses on the activities of the manufacturing and financial magnates, Henry Kaiser and Nelson Rockefeller, in Brazil. The pair transferred American technology and techniques to enhance the development of Brazil.

All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s

Cobbs' second book is based on the people and politics behind the Peace Corps, and discusses themes of American idealism at work during the difficult realities of the second half of the twentieth century. All You Need is Love was published in October 1998.

Major Problems in American History, Volumes I and II

Major Problems in American History, in two volumes, introduces college undergraduates to the major events and phases of American history. As co-editor with Jon Gjerde and later Edward Blum, Cobbs has edited four editions of the book 2002 (Houghton-Mifflin, Cengage).

Broken Promises: A Novel of the Civil War

Broken Promises: A Novel of the Civil War was published by Ballantine Books on March 29, 2011, the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter. The book won the San Diego Book Award and also Director's Mention for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction.

American Umpire

American Umpire, a reinterpretation of the United States' role in global affairs from 1776 to 2012, was published by Harvard University Press in March 2013.

The Hamilton Affair

Cobbs' novel The Hamilton Affair was published by Skyhorse Publishing in August 2016. The Hamilton Affair is based on the remarkable lives of Alexander Hamilton and his wife Eliza Schuyler, who survived him following his infamous duel with US vice-president Aaron Burr and raised their surviving seven children alone while helping other impoverished families.

The Tubman Command

Arcade/Skyhorse Publishing released Cobbs' historical novel The Tubman Command in May 2019. The work is a fictional retelling of the 1863 Combahee River Raid on Confederate positions during the Civil War and the role of abolitionist Harriet Tubman in that military operation.

Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé Cobbs' Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé was published by Harvard University Press in 2023. It argues that feminism was born in the American Revolution and has driven U.S. history since, influencing not only the global expansion of women's rights, but also the abolition of slavery, the spread of industrialization, the creation of a social safety net, and the doubling of the U.S. economy.

Awards, grants, and fellowships

Elizabeth Cobbs has received two literary prizes for American History and two for fiction. She is the recipient of Director's Mention for the 2009 Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction,

Cobbs was a Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution from 2010 to 2020, held the 2003–2004 Fulbright Distinguished Professorship at University College Dublin, Ireland, the 1997 Bernath Lecture Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), a 1993 Fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., and the American Dream, a 2020 Telly Award, Silver Medal, for CyberWork and the American Dream, a 2018 prize in the PBS competition “About Women and Girls Film Festival” for The Hello Girls, a 2018 Best Documentary Feature for CyberWork and the American Dream in the Los Angeles Film Award, Platinum for Best Documentary, and Best Short Documentary for American Umpire in the 2016 San Diego GI Film Festival.

Op-eds, journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries 2018: "Why the Pulitzer Prize committee keeps ignoring women's history," The Washington Post, April 13 2017: "'Hello Girls' answered our nation's call," Houston Chronicle, May 27 2017: "International Women's Day - American women behind, as usual," The Hill, March 7 2017; "Can History Prepare Us for the Trump Presidency?" Politico, January 22 2017: "Woodrow Wilson's woman problem, a case study for the Trump era," Los Angeles Times, January 18 2016: "Why today's victors don't want the spoils," San Diego Union, September 21 2016: "For U.S. foreign policy, it's time to look again at the founding fathers' 'Great Rule'," Los Angeles Times, July 4 2016: "Kuwait Showed the Value of Limited Intervention," The New York Times, February 28 2016: "Brexit vote has global consequences," San Diego Union, June 11 2015: "Why the U.S. Officially 'Believes' Pakistan's bin Laden Story," Reuters, May 20 2015: "Why the Letter to Iran Won't End Well for Republicans," Reuters, March 11 2015: "Why Boehner's Invite to Netanyahu is Unconstitutional," Reuters, March 2 2014: "Metaphor Meets Reality: U.S. and China Are Clearing the Air," Reuters, November 17 2014: "Avoid a Classic Blunder: Stay Out of Religious Wars in the Middle East," Reuters, September 16 2014: "The Sincerest Form of Flattery: The Peace Corps, The Helsinki Accords, and the Internationalization of Social Values," in Bruce J. Schulman. Making the American Century: Essays on the Political Culture of Twentieth Century America (New York: Oxford, 2014) 2014: "Court of Arbitration Could Help Solve Russia-Ukraine Crisis," San Diego Union, (March 26 ) 2014: "Obama Must Escape the Cold War Syndrome," Chicago Tribune (Reuters). February 21 2014: "America's Long Search for Mr. Right," Reuters, February 12 2013: "Best Frenemies," Hoover Digest, January, reprinted from "Making Frenemies with Putin," Reuters, September 10 2013: "Room for Debate: For U.S., There's An Easy Distinction," The New York Times, September 4 2013: "Patriotism: Revolutionaries Were Original Patriots," San Diego Union, June 29 2013: "George Washington's Benghazi Blues," Jerusalem Post, May 26 2013: "Terrorism: Is American Imperialism Inviting It?" San Jose Mercury, May 3 2013: "Room for Debate: China, Japan, and South Korea's Turn," The New York Times, Op-Ed, March 13 2013: "Come Home, America," The New York Times, Op-Ed, March 5 2013: April 10, Elizabeth Cobbs debate Andrew Bacevich "Umpire or Empire" 2011: "Saddle Up for A Wild Western Ride, L'Amour Style," National Public Radio Website, "All Things Considered," May 16 2013:' "America's Civil War—and Syria's," San Diego Union, April 10 20101: "A Dangerous Neutrality," DisUnion Blog, The New York Times, The Opinion Pages, 12 May 2010: "How I Became a Novelist and Lived (Learned) to Tell the Tale," Passport, SHAFR, April 2010: 22–23 2008: "The Ties That Bind: Personal Diplomacy in International Relations," Washington Independent, August 29 2008: "Spying: A US Psychic Dilemma" Washington Independent, June 20 2008: "When Did Talking Go Out of Style?" Washington Independent, June 4 2008: "The New Frontier" and "The Peace Corps," in Encyclopedia of the Cold War, Routledge: 626–627, 684–686 2006: "Returning to Containment," San Diego Union, March 8 2004: "John F. Kennedy and the Problem of Idealism," in John F. Kennedy: A Retrospective Look, Warsaw University Press (Poland): 119–125 2003: "The Peace Corps," in Poverty and Social Welfare in America: An Encyclopedia, ed. Gwendolyn Mink, et al., ABC-Clio: 530–531 2001: "Nothing Wrong With Teaching What's Right About U.S.," Los Angeles Times, December 30 2001: "Decolonization, the Cold War, and the Foreign Policy of the Peace Corps," in Empire and Revolution: The United States and the Third World since 1945. Columbus: Ohio State University, 2001: 123–153 2001: "The Assassins Revisited", San Diego Union, October 18 2001: The Oxford Companion to United States History, Oxford University Press, entry on "The Peace Corps:" 584 1999: "Playing the Role of Warrior and Priest," Los Angeles Times, April 11 1998: "Building Nations with the Peace Corps," San Diego Union, April 26 1997: "Diplomatic History and the Meaning of Life: Toward a Global American History," Diplomatic History. Fall 1997: 499–518 1996: "Decolonization, the Cold War and the Foreign Policy of the Peace Corps" Diplomatic History. Winter 1996: 79–105 1991: "U.S. Business: Self-Interest and Neutrality," in Abraham F. Lowenthal, ed., Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991: 264–295