Daniel Immerwahr was honored as the Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities in the department of history during an investiture ceremony of endowed chairs on March 9.
Daniel Immerwahr (Ph.D., Berkeley, 2011) is Bergen Evans Professor in the Humanities. His first book, Thinking Small (Harvard, 2015), offers a critical account of grassroots development campaigns launched by the United States at home and abroad. It won the Merle Curti Award in Intellectual History from the Organization of American Historians and the Society for U.S. Intellectual History’s annual book award. His second book, How to Hide an Empire (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), is a narrative history of the United States that brings its overseas territory into the story. That book was a national bestseller, a New York Times critic’s choice for one of the best books of 2019, and the winner of the Robert H. Ferrell Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Immerwahr’s writings have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, Harper’s, The New Republic, The Nation, Dissent, and Slate, among other places.
More information and many of Immerwahr’s writings are available at his website.
About the Bergen Evans Chair
The Bergen Evans Chair was established in 1989 by Frances Lutz, an alumnus of the Class of 1935. It was her hope that through this professorship, the College would be able to attract and retain outstanding faculty members. Bergen Evans began his teaching career at Northwestern in 1932 and remained until his retirement in 1974. His courses, especially Introduction to Literature, became extremely popular, enrolling more students than any other course offered at the University. His major contribution to scholarship was The Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage. Evans simultaneously pursued a second career as an author publishing short stories in national magazines and a number of books on topics ranging from car repair to a history of nonsense. He also appeared on television and radio and became a nationally known media personality. Among the many honors Evans received during his long and productive career were the 1939 Scribner Prize and a Peabody Award in 1957 for outstanding public service in broadcasting.