Gavin Wright

 Professor Gavin Wright is the William Robertson Coe Professor of American Economic History at Stanford University Emeritus. Wright's research uses the analytical tools of economics to interpret the historical record. He maintains a longstanding interest in the economic development of the American South, from the antebellum slave economy to the post-Civil Rights era. He argues that the Civil Rights Revolution was not a program of redistribution, but rather a reintegration of African-Americans into the economy of the South, and that it benefited both whites and blacks, reversing the 50-year trend of black emigration from the South. More recent research has tried to identify the historical origins of U.S. economic preeminence in the world, finding the primary locus in the rise of a distinctive national technological community. Wright was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1994-95. In 2006, the Cambridge University Press issued the five-volume Historical Statistics of the United Stated Millennial Edition, co-edited by Wright, which was recognized by the Thomas Jefferson Prize in 2008. Other awards include Arthur C. Cole Prize, Frank Lawrence and Harriet Chappell Owsley Award, Carstensen Prize, and Alice Hanson Jones Prize.