I am an associate professor of History at the University of Virginia where I teach and write about political and social movements in the modern United States. You can download my CV here.
My work is centrally concerned with how ideas about the purpose of government have changed over time. I explored this theme in my first book, THE CIGARETTE: A POLITICAL HISTORY, which examined how the cigarette was made and remade over the twentieth century by farmers, lawyers, businesses, and activists. THE CIGARETTE won the 2020 PROSE Award for North American History, the Willie Lee Rose prize for best book in southern history, and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize.
My writing on the politics of tobacco has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Time, among other venues.
Along with Katherine Turk, I am currently working on SILKWOOD, a political biography of nuclear whistleblower Karen Silkwood. We focus on the civil case brought by her estate, Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee—a case that began in Oklahoma City but ended up before the Supreme Court in a decision that vindicated the right of employees to sue the nuclear industry in state courts. SILKWOOD shows how the social forces of the 1970s—feminism, environmentalism, civil libertarianism, organized labor—produced a nuclear martyr, and trial of the century.
I live in Charlottesville, Virginia with my family.
Contact:
Email: smilov@virginia.edu
Post: Nau Hall
1540 Jefferson Park Ave
Charlottesville, VA 22904
Twitter: @allofmilov