Professor Kyle Volk is chair of the UM History Department. His award-winning research and teaching focus on the history of the United States, with emphasis on political, intellectual, and legal history during the long nineteenth century (1776-1933). He is especially interested in the history of American democracy; the problem and politics of dissent and difference in American society; capitalism, law, and the American state; civil rights, civil liberties, and the changing meaning of freedom in American life.