Alan Axelrod is the author of numerous popular titles focusing on military history, general history, and American history. After receiving his PhD in English (specializing in early American literature and culture) from the University of Iowa in 1979, Axelrod taught early American literature and culture at Lake Forest College (Lake Forest, Illinois) and at Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina). He then entered scholarly publishing in 1982 as associate editor and scholar with the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, Delaware), an institution specializing in the history and material culture of America prior to 1832. Axelrod is former senior editor of Abbeville Press and vice president of Zenda Inc., a consulting firm to museums and cultural institutions. In 1994 he became director of development for Turner Publishing Inc. (Atlanta), a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., and in 1997, he founded The Ian Samuel Group Inc., a creative services and book-packaging firm.
Axelrod was a featured speaker at the 2004 Conference on Excellence in Government (Washington, D.C.), at the Leadership Institute of Columbia College (Columbia, South Carolina), and at the 2005 Annual Conference of the Goizueta School of Business, Emory University (Atlanta). He has been a creative consultant (and on-camera personality) for The Wild West television documentary series (Warner Bros., 1993), Civil War Journal (A&E Network, 1994), and The Discovery Channel, and he has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, CNNfn, CNBC, Fox Network affiliates in Philadelphia and Atlanta, and numerous radio news and talk programs, including National Public Radio. He and his work have been featured in BusinessWeek, Fortune, Men’s Health, Cosmopolitan, Inc., Atlanta Business Chronicle, and many newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and USA Today. Axelrod has served as consultant for the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum (Rochester, New York), the Airmen Memorial Museum (Suitland, Maryland), and the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, Delaware).