Born in
Cheshire in 1959, Andrew O'Shaughnessy was educated at
Bedford School. After completing his B.A. and
D.Phil at
Oriel College, Oxford, he taught at
Eton College. He was subsequently appointed as a visiting professor at
Southern Methodist University in
Dallas and as Professor of
American History at the
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he was chair of the History Department between 1998 and 2003. O'Shaughnessy is the author of
An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (2000) and
The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2013), which received eight national awards including the
New York Historical Society American History Book Prize, the
George Washington Book Prize, and the Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in American History Book Award. It has been translated into Chinese. A
Fellow of the
Royal Historical Society, O'Shaughnessy is co-editor of
Old World, New World: America and Europe in the Age of Jefferson (2010), ''The Founding of Thomas Jefferson's University
(2019), The European Friends of the American Revolution'' (2023) and ""Capitalism and Slavery" Revisited. The Impact and Legacy of Eric Williams's Trailblazing Work." (2026). He is a general editor of the
Jeffersonian American Series, published by the
University of Virginia Press. O'Shaughnessy's father,
John O'Shaughnessy, was a Professor at the
Columbia University Business School. His brother,
Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, is Professor of Communications at
Queen Mary College, London University. He is a joint citizen of the
United Kingdom and the
United States. ==Awards and honours==