Donald A. Yerxa (born July 19, 1950) is an American author, editor, and historian.
Biography Yerxa received his bachelor's degree in history from the Eastern Nazarene College in 1972 and a master's degree (1974) and Ph.D. (1982) from the University of Maine on a university fellowship. He was a director of The Historical Society (THS)The Historical Society at Boston University and a senior editor of Historically Speaking, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press.Historically Speaking
Yerxa is the former chair of the History Department at his alma mater, the Eastern Nazarene College, where he taught from 1977 to 2014, and launched the history department's distinguished lecture series in the 1990s. He was editor of the Conference on Faith and History's journal Fides et Historia from 2011 to 2020.Conference on Faith and History , space provided by Huntington University He was a guest co-editor for the European Review's, forum on the Scientific Revolution, and was a contributing editor for Books and Culture magazine.Books & Culture: a Christian Review He was a frequent contributor to the Research News & Opportunities in Science and Theology publication for the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) and has been a multiple grant recipient. &
Published works Yerxa has written scores of articles, review essays, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries for a number of publications. He has also conducted over one hundred published interviews of prominent historians and scholars from other disciplines. He is the author of three books, two on naval history: Admirals and Empire,Donald Yerxa, Admirals and Empire: The U.S. Navy and the Caribbean, 1898-1945, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991 and The Burning of Falmouth,Donald Yerxa, The Burning of Falmouth, 1775: A Case Study in British Imperial Pacification, October 18, 1775. Portland: Maine Historical Society, 1976 and Species of Origins: America’s Search for a Creation StoryKarl Giberson and Donald Yerxa, Species of Origins: America's Search for a Creation Story, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002 with coauthor Karl Giberson. Admirals was described as "solidly researched, clearly and economically written, and intelligently conceived... a useful synthesis filling a gap in the existing literature,"Journal Storage Archive for the American Historical Review (2 pp.) Species of Origins was widely reviewed as a uniquely even-handed and concise contribution to the scholarship on the creation–evolution controversy in the United States. Galileo scholar William Shea lauded the account as the "best-written and most perceptive of the current accounts available,"Book blurbs for Species of Origins, from Rowman & Littlefield while author Edward Larson described it as the "next best thing for those of us not enrolled in their courses." Professor of science Michael Ruse described it as “a simply invaluable primer on the subject that should be made compulsory reading for all who have ever thought on science-and-religion ... I can think of no better place to start into the debate about origins — creationism or evolution — than with this book.”National Center for Science Education It has been the subject of and catalyst for various discussions, conferences, and other books.Examples: CONFERENCE EXAMINES EVOLUTION, INTELLIGENT DESIGN, Grove City College, January 05, 2007 and On The Evolution-Creation Struggle by Michael Ruse
Yerxa has also edited seven volumes in the Historians in Conversation series for the University of South Carolina Press. And he has also two edited other volumes: British Abolitionism, Moral Progress, and Big Questions in History (University of South Carolina Press, 2012) and Religion and Innovation: Antagonists or Partners (Bloomsbury, 2016).
References
External links ENC History Department Donald A. Yerxa CV List of Books & Culture contributions by Prof. Yerxa Project page for members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU)