Christopher Phillips is the author of six books on the border states during the Civil War era, including The Civil War in the Border South (2013); Missouri’s Confederate: Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Creation of Southern Identity in the Border West (2000), winner of the Eagleton-Waters Award for the Best Book on Missouri Political History; Damned Yankee: The Life of Nathaniel Lyon (1990, 1996), selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.

He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His most recent book project, The Rivers Ran Backward: The Civil War on the Middle Border and the Making of American Regionalism was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.