Alice Baumgartner is an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and an M.Phil in Latin American Studies from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Her first book, South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to Civil War, was selected as an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review and as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in History.