T.J. Stiles has held the Dorothy and Lewis B. Gilder Lehrman Fellowship in American History at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Gilder Lehrman Foundation. At the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he lectured at Columbia University and served as an adviser for the PBS series The American Experience. His debut book, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Ambassador Book Medal and the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Research. In 2009, The First Tycoon won the National Book Award. He has contributed to The New York Times Book Review, Salon.com, Smithsonian, and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications.

He currently resides in San Francisco. www.tjstiles.com is the author's website.