Photo: Nacer Jalloul

Tom Chaffin’s newest book Odyssey: Young Charles Darwin, The Beagle, and the Voyage that Changed the World (Pegasus Books, 2002)  chronicles the naturalist’s five years of travels associated with HMS Beagle.  For Odyssey, Chaffin was named 2023 Georgia Author of the Year, biography-memoir division, by the Georgia Writers Association. Chaffin’s other books include Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship that Helped Forge Two Nations;  Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire:  Sea of Gray: The Around-The-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah; The H. L. Hunley: The Secret Hope of the Confederacy;  and Giant’s Causeway: Frederick Douglass’s Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary.

The author was born and grew up in Atlanta and spent his early professional years in journalism, living in, among other places, Savannah, New York City, San Francisco, and Paris. Chaffin (B.A., English, Georgia State University; M.A. American Studies, New York University; Ph. D. History, Emory University) has taught U.S. history and writing at various universities, and his articles, reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Time, Harper’s, The Nation, the Oxford American, and other publications. He was a frequent contributor to the New York Times‘ acclaimed “Disunion” series on the American Civil War. In 2012, he was a Fulbright fellow in Ireland.

Chaffin lives in Atlanta.

Contact him at info@tomchaffin.com

Follow him on Twitter here.