Robert M. S. McDonald is Professor of History at the United States Military Academy, where he has taught since 1998.

Author of Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time (University of Virginia Press, 2016), he is also the editor of Thomas Jefferson’s Military Academy: Founding West Point (University of Virginia Press, 2004), Light & Liberty: Thomas Jefferson and the Power of Knowledge (University of Virginia Press, 2012), Sons of the Father: George Washington and His Protégés (University of Virginia Press, 2013), Thomas Jefferson’s Lives: Biographers and the Battle for History (University of Virginia Press, 2019), and, with Peter S. Onuf, Revolutionary Prophecies: The Founders and America’s Future (University of Virginia Press, 2021). He also edited Ashbrook’s Core Documents volume on the American Revolution (Ashbrook Press, 2019).

He earned his B.A. at the University of Virginia, his M.St. at Oxford, and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.