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Brandy Mai, Director of Communications
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New Editor at the Helm of Georgia Historical Quarterly

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Savannah, GA, August 24, 2010 – The Georgia Historical Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Glen McNair has been hired as the new editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly. The Quarterly is the Georgia Historical Society’s award-winning scholarly journal and has been published continuously since 1917.  As the journal of record for Georgia history and the only publication of its kind in the state, the Quarterly features articles based on cutting edge research, book reviews, and other in-depth analysis of the ongoing story of Georgia’s past.

Dr. McNair is an associate professor of history and chair of the history department at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. A Georgia native, Dr. McNair received his Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice from Savannah State University in 1988, a master's degree in history from Georgia College & State University in 1996, and he went on to earn a Ph.D. in American History at Emory University in 2001. He has served on the Quarterly Board of Editors since January 2009.

Dr. McNair is author of the book Criminal Injustice: Slaves and Free Blacks in Georgia's Criminal Justice System (University of Virginia Press, 2009), and he has published in scholarly journals on various aspects of the African-American experience, with a particular emphasis on slavery. He is the only person to win both of the Georgia Historical Society’s awards for superior articles published in the Georgia Historical Quarterly: The 2010 E. Merton Coulter Award for the best article published in the GHQ in 2009 and the 2000 William Bacon Stephens Award for the best article published by a student.

“We are delighted to welcome such a distinguished scholar to edit the Quarterly,” says Dr. W. Todd Groce, president and CEO of the Georgia Historical Society. “Dr. McNair will certainly bring to the job a fresh perspective while maintaining the Quarterly’s reputation for cutting-edge research and analysis.”

Dr. McNair’s current research focuses on black political culture since the civil rights era. In addition to publishing in scholarly periodicals, his articles on slavery, criminal justice, race, and politics have appeared in local and national newspapers and comments regularly in print and online media on contemporary racial issues. Before becoming an academic, Dr. McNair was a police officer in his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, and a special agent with the United States Treasury Department, where he served on the Secret Service protective detail of President Bill Clinton.

Dr. McNair is the sixth editor of the Quarterly during its 93-year history.  He succeeds Dr. Anne Bailey, who has retired from teaching at Georgia College and State University and is stepping down in December after ten highly successful years as editor.