Steven Ujifusa

STEVEN UJIFUSA is a historian who chronicles the American experience, with a focus on shipping, business, and social history. His third book, The Last Ships from Hamburg: Business, Rivalry, and the Race to Save Russia’s Jews on the Eve of World War I, tells the story of Eastern European Jewish immigration to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was named by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year and by National Public Radio as a “Book of the Day.”

He is also the author of Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World’s Fastest Clipper Ship and A Man and His Ship: America’s Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the SS United States (named as one of the ten best books of the year by The Wall Street Journal).

He is the recipient of the Washington Irving Award for Literary Excellence from the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and a MacDowell artist residency. A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design, he lives with his family in Philadelphia, PA.