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.

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. Starting in summer 2026, he will be the Julian Steward Chair of Social Sciences at Deep Springs.

When Scott 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.