Nevins, Allan (1890–1971)

US historian. He became professor of American history at Columbia University, New York, 1931, and contributed much to the study of 19th-century US history. His life of President Grover Cleveland 1932 won a Pulitzer Prize.

Nevins was educated at Illinois and Columbia universities. Before becoming an academic, he worked as a journalist on various newspapers. He was in England as professor at Oxford 1940–41 and 1964–65, and as director of the US Information Service in Britain 1946–47.

His books include John D Rockefeller 1940, America: The Story of a Free People 1942, The Ordeal of the Union 1946, a life of the entrepreneur Henry Ford 1954–57, and The War for the Union (2 vols) 1959 and 1961.