Eric Herschthal is an assistant professor of history at the University of Utah. His first book, The Science of Abolition: How Slaveholders Became the Enemies of Progress (Yale University Press, 2021), uncovers the little-known story of how antislavery scientists and Black and white abolitionists used scientific ideas to discredit slavery. Looking far beyond the science of race, The Science of Abolition uncovers a wide range of scientific ideas -- from chemistry, botany, and geology, to technological and medical ideas -- that critics of slavery deployed to bolster the antislavery cause and that ultimately portrayed slavery as hopelessly backward, a relic of a pre-modern age.

His academic writing has appeared in leading peer-reviewed historical journals including Slavery & Abolition, The Journal of the Early Republic, Early American Studies, and The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. His research has been supported by grants from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York Public Library), The Huntington Library, the American Philosophical Society, the National Science Foundation, the Omohundro Institute, and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, and his B.A. in history from Princeton University.

Before entering academia, Eric worked as a journalist in New York City. He received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, and continues to write for publications such as The New York Times , The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and The Washington Post , among other publications. He is originally from South Florida, and lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, Ilana, and their dog, Maya.

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