Charles W. Calhoun is a historian who specializes in the political history of the United States from 1865 to 1900.  He holds degrees in history from Yale and Columbia, and is Thomas Harriot College Distinguished Professor of History, emeritus, at East Carolina University.  He also is a past president of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Calhoun is the author or editor of ten books, including his latest: The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.