With heavy hearts we share the news of the death of Tony Horwitz, who died in Washington, DC, on May 27th. Tony was our president from 2016 to 2017. But for years, he lent his gifts as a historian to the SAH, bringing the Society the exuberance, warmth, curiosity and wit that transformed his own historical work into a high-stakes intellectual endeavor.
He called his books "participatory history," and that they were. Tony found history’s unsettled disputes and unfinished business in attics and on mastheads, barstools and the backs of mules. History mattered to Tony, to his interlocutors and to fortunate readers invited along on his adventures with the past.
Jill Lepore, who preceded Tony as SAH president, wrote a lovely tribute to Tony on the New Yorker's website.
We send our condolences to Tony’s family and to Geraldine Brooks, our SAH colleague.