# Marc Egnal > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Marc_Egnal > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Marc_Egnal.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Egnal > Source revision: 1334458525 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) **Marc Egnal** is an American historian whose work examines topics including the [American Revolution](/source/American_Revolution), the [Civil War](/source/American_Civil_War), novels and art, economic history, and the [Canadian economy](/source/Canadian_economy).[1][2] ## Life Egnal, born December 11, 1943, grew up in [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania](/source/Philadelphia,_Pennsylvania). He moved to [Toronto, Canada](/source/Toronto,_Canada), in 1970 to assume a position at [York University](/source/York_University).[1] He married Judith Humphrey, founder of an executive communications firm. They have two sons and four grandchildren.[3] ## Career After graduating from [Swarthmore College](/source/Swarthmore_College) in 1965, Egnal went to the [University of Wisconsin](/source/University_of_Wisconsin) to study the Revolutionary era with [Merrill Jensen](/source/Merrill_Jensen). As part of this graduate program, he spent a year, 1968-1969, at the University of London on a Fulbright Fellowship.[4] He began teaching at [York University](/source/York_University) in Toronto in 1970 and retired in 2015.[5][6] He is the author of six books, beginning with *A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution* (Cornell UP, 1988).[7] Two works of economic history followed: *Divergent Paths: How Culture and Institutions Have Shaped North American Growth* (Oxford UP, 1996)[8] and *New World Economies: The Growth of the Thirteen Colonies and Early Canada* (Oxford UP, 1998).[9] His next major work was *The Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War* (Hill and Wang, 2009). It argues that “more than any other reason, the evolution of the Northern and Southern economies explains the Civil War.”[10] After many years of research, Egnal produced *A Mirror for History: How Novels and Art Reflect the Evolution of Middle-Class America* ([University of Tennessee Press](/source/University_of_Tennessee_Press), 2024).[11] The book examines American society from 1750 to 2020 and contends that “the arc of middle-class culture reflects the evolution of the economy from the 1750s, when the ‘middling folk’ emerged as a recognizable group, to the fractious present, when extremes in wealth threaten the very existence of that cohort.” The book draws upon novels, painting, and quantitative data.[12][13] In 2025 Egnal published *Challenging the Myths of US History: Seven Short Essays on the Past & Present* ([University of California Press](/source/University_of_California_Press)). The chapters look at progress in the writing of [American history](/source/History_of_the_United_States), the [Revolution](/source/American_Revolution), [Civil War](/source/American_Civil_War), Vietnam, violence, the women’s movement, and Donald Trump. The book contends that “at the heart of the American story are the demands of affluent citizens for economic growth and territorial expansion.”[14] Finally, in his retirement Egnal has turned his hand to fiction and published ten stories in small literary journals.[6] ## References 1. ["Marc Egnal"](https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/megnal/). *Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies*. 2018-05-24. Retrieved 2025-09-23. 1. ["Libraries Search"](https://search.library.wisc.edu/search/system/author?q=%22Egnal%2C+Marc%22). *University of Wisconsin-Madison*. Retrieved 23 January 2026. 1. ["Cheng-Fang Yu, Benjamin Egnal (Published 2019)"](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/09/fashion/weddings/cheng-fang-yu-benjamin-egnal.html). 2019-06-09. Retrieved 2025-09-23. 1. ["Archived copy"](https://web.archive.org/web/20141015023424/http://people.laps.yorku.ca/people.nsf). Archived from [the original](http://people.laps.yorku.ca/people.nsf) on 15 October 2014. Retrieved 2014-10-10. 1. ["Marc Egnal"](https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/megnal/). *yorku.ca*. York University. 24 May 2018. [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20180819001623/https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/megnal/) 19 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine. 1. Egnal, Marc (12 July 2013). ["Crunching Literary Numbers"](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/opinion/sunday/crunching-literary-numbers.html). *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)*. Retrieved 11 August 2017. 1. Parramore, Lynn. ["“Founders Would Be Horrified”: Renowned Historian Drops Truth-Bomb on American Revolution and Lessons for Today"](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/founders-would-be-horrified-renowned-historian-drops-truth-bomb-on-american-revolution-and-lessons-for-today). *Institute for New Economic Thinking*. Retrieved 2025-09-23. 1. Szostak, Rick (1997). ["Divergent Paths: How Culture and Institutions Have Shaped North American Growth, by Marc Egnal"](https://utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/cjh.32.1.131). *Canadian Journal of History*. **32** (1): 131–132. [doi:10.3138/cjh.32.1.131](https://doi.org/10.3138/cjh.32.1.131). [ISSN 0008-4107](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0008-4107) 1. ["Marc Egnal"](https://www.rorotoko.com/people/egnal-marc). *www.rorotoko.com*. Retrieved 2025-09-23. 1. Gruenwald, Kim M. (2011). ["Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War – By Marc Egnal"](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1540-6563.2011.00301_7.x). *Historian*. **73** (3): 558–559. [doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2011.00301_7.x](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6563.2011.00301_7.x). [ISSN 1540-6563](https://www.worldcat.org/issn/1540-6563) 1. ["A Mirror for History | University of Tennessee Press"](https://utpress.org/title/a-mirror-for-history/). Retrieved 2025-09-23. 1. Egnal, Marc (2024). [*A Mirror for History: How Novels and Art Reflect the Evolution of Middle-Class America*](https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.15369550). The University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-62190-867-8. 1. Fiedler, Leslie. ["Love Love and Death in the American Novel? Readers pick 100 books like Love and Death in the American Novel..."](https://shepherd.com/books-like/love-and-death-in-the-american-novel). *Shepherd*. Retrieved 2025-09-23. 1. Egnal, Marc (2025-09-23). [*Challenging the Myths of US History: Seven Short Essays on the Past and Present*](https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520402478/html?lang=en&srsltid=AfmBOopahaceJ7SzEvVefvMY88gIjVQBRnmRHFkaqXHpoqNdHfArol7K). University of California Press. [doi:10.1525/9780520402478](https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520402478). ISBN 978-0-520-40247-8. ## External links - [Faculty Profile](https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/megnal/) at York University Web site: [www.marcegnal.com](http://www.marcegnal.com) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Marc Egnal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Egnal) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Egnal?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.