Prof. Robert McDonald, Ph.D.

Professor Robert M. S. McDonald is an expert on the American Revolution and the Early American Republic. Holding graduate degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Prof. McDonald has taught history at the United States Military Academy at West Point for more than twenty years. He is the author of Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time (2016), and the editor of a number of books, including Thomas Jefferson’s Lives: Biographers and the Battle for History (2019), Sons of the Father: George Washington and His Protégés (2013), Light & Liberty: Thomas Jefferson and the Power of Knowledge (2012), and Thomas Jefferson’s Military Academy: Founding West Point (2004).

Praise for Robert McDonald

“Rob McDonald is a superb historian of the era of the American Revolution and Early Republic. Rob’s scholarship has enriched our understanding of the Revolution’s significance in American and world history. He is a leading authority on the Declaration of Independence and the leading authority Thomas Jefferson’s changing reputation in his own lifetime.”

– Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia