I’m a historian of the United States Civil War and Reconstruction era (1820-1920) and American medicine and health. I am assistant professor of history at James Madison University, where I have worked since 2023. Previously, in 2021-23, I was an assistant professor of history at the Virginia Military Institute. In 2020-21, I was the inaugural Postdoctoral Scholar in Civil War History at Penn State’s George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center. I received my PhD in history in 2020 from Binghamton University.

My first book, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America’s First Opioid Crisis (UNC Press, 2025), investigates opioid addiction among veterans of the U.S. Civil War. The book uncovers how the war sparked an epidemic of drug addiction among survivors, America’s first opioid crisis. In doing so, Opium Slavery interrogates nineteenth-century urderstandings of addiction and investigates the traumatic lived experience of addiction, which upended the lives of veterans and their families. The book also uncovers radical efforts by physicians and the state to stem the tide of the addiction crisis as it rippled throughout American medicine and society in unexpected ways. Ultimately, Opium Slavery illuminates the disastrous health and social effects of the Civil War for many survivors and calls attention to the U.S.’s long, but largely forgotten, history of opioid crises, with deeply troubling parallels between past and present. Opium Slavery has been covered in the Washington Post, HISTORY, NPR, and BBC, among other outlets. You can read more about my scholarship here.

History has tremendous power to inform public sentiment, and I’m convinced that communicating hard history to public audiences is one of historians’ most important jobs, especially in these tumultuous times. I’ve published essays on a wide range of historical topics in outlets including Vice, Slate, Washington Post, STAT, and The Conversation, which you can read here. I frequently appear on radio, television, and podcasts and give talks at museums, with selected appearances are accessible here.

In the classroom, my teaching agenda includes the Civil War and Reconstruction era and the history of medicine and health in American and global contexts. You can read more about my teaching goals and practices and view recent syllabi here.

I’m a first-generation, Pell Grant-recipient college graduate from Texas. Before earning my PhD I worked as a public school teacher, a wonderful experience that taught me to love teaching and communicating history to public audiences.

Want to chat? Contact me by email at jonathans.jones@icloud.com