Research Fellow Elizabeth Cobbs writes, lectures, and produces documentaries on world history, the history of US foreign relations, and current international policy. She has won literary prizes for both history and fiction and holds the Melbern G. Glasscock Chair in American History at Texas A&M University. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Jerusalem Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, China Daily News, Washington Independent, San Diego Union, Reuters, and other distinguished publications. She has appeared on the Today Show, Morning Joe Show, and National Public Radio. 

Cobbs’s first book of nonfiction, The Rich Neighbor Policy, won the Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians, and the Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Her first historical novel, Broken Promises: A Novel of the Civil War, won the San Diego Book Award and Director’s Mention for the Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction. Her other books include American Umpire, Major Problems in American History, and All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the 1960s. She has served on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize in History and two terms on the Historical Advisory Committee of the US State Department. She has received awards and fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Organization of American States, and other distinguished institutions.

Cobbs is working on three projects at Hoover. She is finishing a novel on the life of Alexander Hamilton as well as beginning a book that weaves together the story of Woodrow Wilson’s decision to support women’s suffrage (an extension of his hope to make the world “safe for democracy”), with the story of the Women’s Signal Corps, the first female unit in the U. Army. She is also co-producing and writing a PBS documentary based on her book American Umpire, which explores America’s grand strategy for the next fifty years.

Cobbs holds a BA in literature/writing from the University of California at San Diego and an MA and PhD in American history from Stanford University. She is a native Californian.