Scott Spillman

Scott Spillman is an American historian and the author of the book Making Sense of Slavery: America’s Long Reckoning, from the Founding Era to Today (2025). His essays and reviews have appeared in The Point, Liberties, The New Yorker, The New Republic, n+1, the Chronicle Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and he has published academic articles in Reviews in American History, History of Education Quarterly, and North Carolina Historical Review. He has worked in public history at the Colorado Encyclopedia, History Colorado, and the Leadville Historic Preservation Commission, and has taught at Colorado College and the University of Colorado–Denver. He is currently the Julian Steward Chair of Social Sciences at Deep Springs.

Scott has a PhD in history from Stanford University, and before that he studied history, English, and political philosophy at the University of North Carolina (and Duke University) as a Robertson Scholar. When he is not reading and writing, he enjoys telling dad jokes to his twin daughters, taking walks with his partner and their sweet Doberman named Wendy, and running in the mountains.