Oct 2020 Book Program

About the Author

Joseph Crespino is the Jimmy Carter Professor of History at Emory University.  He is an expert in the political and cultural history of the American South since Reconstruction.  A distinguished historian, his research has been supported by prestigious fellowships. Crespino has published three books, has co-edited a collection of essays, and has written for academic journals as well as for respected news publications. He won the 2008 Lillian Smith Book Award and was named a 2019 Georgia author of the Year -- History for his most recent book,  Atticus Finch: The Biography—Harper Lee, Her Father, and the Making of an American Icon 

About the Book

How do you write the biography of a fictional character?  Joseph Crespino answers his own question by revealing the various ways in which Harper Lee's cherished father was the model for the archetypal figure of Atticus Finch. With great nuance and historical…