Megan Kate Nelson is a writer, historian, and cultural critic. Based in Lincoln, Massachusetts, she has written for the New York Times Disunion blog, JSTOR Daily, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Civil War Times. She earned her BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and her PhD in American Studies from the University of Iowa, and has taught at Texas Tech University, Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, and Brown. She has written two books--Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War (2012) and Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp (2005)--and is working on a third, Path of the Dead Man: How the West was Won--and Lost--during the American Civil War. Her blog, Historista (www.historista.com), examines the surprising, cool, and weird ways that people engage with history in everyday life.