Carol Berkin received her A.B. from Barnard College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. She is Presidential Professor of History at Baruch College and a member of the history faculty of the Graduate Center of CUNY. Berkin is the author numerous book, among them Civil War Wives, Revolutionary Mothers, A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution, and First Generations: Women in Colonial America, as well as articles and reviews. Professor Berkin has worked as a consultant on several PBS and History Channel documentaries and serves on the boards of The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the National Council for History Education. She lives in New York City.