Ballard C. Campbell is an emeritus professor of history and public policy at Northeastern University. He is the author of The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754-1920 (2021) and other books, including Representative Democracy (1980), The Growth of American Government: Governance from the Cleveland Era to the Present (1995, updated edition 2015). His specialties are American governance, statebuilding, the long nineteenth century, and political economy, including historical geography and policy decision-making.