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Donald L. Miller, John Henry MacCracken Professor of History, will appear as an on-air expert in the forthcoming National Geographic documentary The Devil in the White City, expected to air on the National Geographic Channel during the fall season. Miller served as the film’s historical consultant.
Miller also recently discussed his latest book Masters of the Air as part of the General Electric Aviation Lecture Series, one of the most prestigious of the endowed lectures, at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Donald S. Lopez, deputy director of the National Air and Space Museum, personally invited Miller to deliver the lecture, which was his first at the museum.
Lopez, who flew Curtiss P-40s and North American P-51s under General Claire Chennault in China during World War II, remarked that Miller’s sold-out lecture was the finest ever held at the museum. A dinner before the public lecture hosted various dignitaries, including Brent Glass ’69, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and member of Lafayette’s Board of Trustees.
Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany continues to garner international attention. The book was recently nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is a bestseller in the U.S. as well as the U.K., where it was published under the title Eighth Air Force: The American Bomber Crews in Britain. The book has received enthusiastic reviews in the British press, including the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, and London Times.
The National Geographic documentary is based on the book of the same name by Erik Larson. Larson’s book focuses on the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the largest fair ever held on American soil to that point. As Miller explains, the fair was supposed to be a great celebration of Chicago’s arrival as the second largest city in the United States and the sixth largest in the world; however, a series of mass murders put a damper on festivities. Larson’s book intertwines the stories of Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair’s construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer pretending to be a doctor.
Larson relied heavily on Miller’s City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America, published in 1996 by Simon & Schuster. Miller covered the World’s Fair and the mass murders in his book.
City of the Century received the Great Lakes Book Award for non-fiction in 1996, and was made into a seven hour documentary film series for PBS’s The American Experience. In a front page review in Book World, the Washington Post described the book as “sweeping and beautifully written.” Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times hailed it as “a wonderfully readable account of Chicago’shistory.” And John Barron of the Chicago Sun Times wrote that “Miller has written what will be judged as the great Chicago history.”
In addition to Miller, there will be other historians, crime experts, psychologists, and witnesses as part of the film.
Miller has won six awards for excellence in teaching, five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a number of prestigious book awards. His articles have appeared in national publications, among them the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times. He is a contributing editor of American Heritage Magazine.
In 2004, Miller was chosen by the Smithsonian Institution to give the “kick-off” event of its D-Day celebrations on the Washington Mall – a series of lectures at the Smithsonian on the history of World War II.
He has been the keynote speaker at events sponsored by professional, business, and academic audiences. Among the organizations he has spoken to are: IBM, AT&T, Federal Reserve Bank (Chicago), Chicago Historical Society, Aspen Institute, Television Critics Association, Russell Reynolds Associates, New York State Assembly, American Architectural Association, Smithsonian Institution, National D-Day Museum, Municipal Arts Society, American Historical Association, Annenberg Foundation, World Trade Center Chicago, Embassy of the United States in London, Churchill College in Cambridge, and National Press Club.
Following Hurricane Katrina, he appeared on CNN and National Public Radio and was quoted by a number of national publications, including the New York Times, for his writings on American and European urban disasters, including the Great Chicago Fire and the bombing destruction of cities in Japan and Germany during WWII.
Miller received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and joined the Lafayette faculty in 1978. He regularly mentors students for independent research projects, many of whom contributed to Masters of the Air.
For more information on Miller, visit the following links: