Richard R. John

Richard R. John is a professor of history and communications at the Columbia Journalism School, where teaches courses on the history of communications, networks, and the history of capitalism. His publications include Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010; paperback 2015; Chinese translation forthcoming) and Spreading the News: The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Harvard University Press, 1995; paperback, 1998).

Network Nation has received two book prizes: the Ralph E. Gomory Prize for the best historical monograph on business and society, Business History Conference, 2011; and the Best Book Prize in Journalism and Mass Communication History for 2010, History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

John has also received the Allan Nevins Prize (for Spreading the News) and the Harold F. Williamson Prize for a scholar at mid-career who has made significant contributions to business history. He has been a fellow at the Smithsonian’s Woodrow Wilson Center, a visiting professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and the president of the Business History Conference.

John is the editor of the monograph series, “Business, Technology, and Politics,” at Johns Hopkins University Press. In addition, he serves on the editorial boards of the Business History Review, Enterprise and Society, the Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, Information and Culture, American Journalism, and the Journal of Policy History, and was a founder of the Newberry Library’s Seminar on Technology, Politics, and Culture.