After receiving his Ph.D. (with emphasis on American literature and culture) from the University of Iowa in 1979, and serving in the core curriculum of that Big 10 school as a graduate teaching assistant, Alan Axelrod taught at Lake Forest College (Lake Forest, Illinois) during 1979-80 and at Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina) from 1980 to 1982. He entered publishing in 1982 as associate editor with the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, Delaware). After a brief stint as associate editor at Van Nostrand Reinhold (New York) in 1984, he became senior editor at Abbeville Press (New York) during 1984-91 and then vice president of Zenda, Inc., a consulting firm to museums and cultural institutions. In 1994, he left Zenda to become director of development (chief acquisitions editor) for Turner Publishing, Inc. (Atlanta), a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. In 1997, he founded The Ian Samuel Group, Inc., a creative services and book-packaging firm, and is its president. Axelrod has served as consultant to numerous museums and cultural institutions, including the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum (Rochester, New York), the Airman Memorial Museum (Suitland, Maryland), and the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, Delaware). He has been a creative consultant for (and on-camera personality in) The Wild West television documentary series (Warner Bros., 1993) and Civil War Journal (A&E Network, 1994), and he served as historical consultant for The Discovery Channel. PUBLISHED WORKS Miracle at Belleau Wood: The Birth of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps (Lyons Press, 2007) (A Main Selection of the Military Book Club) Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War's Cruelest Mission(Carroll & Graf, 2007) Blooding at Great Meadows: Young George Washington and the Battle that Shaped the Man (Running Press, 2006) Profiles in Audacity: Great Decisions and How They Were Made (Sterling, 2006) Patton: A Biography (Palgrave Macmillan's Great Generals Series, 2006), series editor General Wesley K. Clark Thomas Jefferson (Alpha "Critical Lives" series biography, 2001) Benito Mussolini (Alpha "Critical Lives" series biography, 2001) Astronomy (Oryx Frontiers of Science Series) (with Christopher De Pree)(Oryx, 2000) Complete Idiot's Guide to Criminology (Macmillan/Alpha, 2002) Complete Idiot's Guide to World War I (Macmillan/Alpha, 2000) Complete Idiot's Guide to the 20th Century (Macmillan/Alpha, 1999) Complete Idiot's Guide to the American Revolution (Macmillan/Alpha, 1999) Complete Idiot's Guide to Jazz (Macmillan/Alpha, 1999) Complete Idiot's Guide to Astronomy (with Christopher De Pree) (Macmillan/Alpha, 1999; Second Edition, 2001) Complete Idiot's Guide to the Civil War (Macmillan/Alpha, 1998) Complete Idiot's Guide to Mixing Drinks (Macmillan/Alpha, 1998) Complete Idiot's Guide to American History (Macmillan/Alpha, 1996; Second Edition, 2000) My Brother's Face: Portraits of the Civil War (with Charles Phillips; Chronicle Books, 1993) What Everyone Should Know About the 20th Century: 200 Events That Shaped Our Time (with Charles Phillips; Adams, 1993) Songs of the Wild West (Simon and Schuster/Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992) The War between the Spies: A History of Espionage During the American Civil War (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1992) A Chronicle of the Indian Wars: From Colonial Times to Wounded Knee (Prentice-Hall Press, 1992) What Every American Should Know About American History: 200 Events That Shaped the Nation (with Charles Phillips; Adams, 1992) Art of the Golden West (Abbeville Press, 1991)
