J. R. McNeill studied at Swarthmore College and Duke University and has taught at Georgetown University, Washington DC, since 1985. He has held two Fulbright awards, Guggenheim, MacArthur Foundation and Woodrow Wilson Center Fellowships, and a visiting appointment at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. His books include The Atlantic Empires of France and Spain, 1700–1765 (1985); The Mountains of the Mediterranean World (1992); Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (2000), co-winner of the World History Association book prize, the Forest History Society book prize, and runner-up for the BP Natural World book prize, listed by the London Times among the ten best science books ever written (despite not being a science book) and translated into nine languages; The Human Web: A Bird's-eye View of World History (2003), co-authored with his father, William McNeill, and translated into seven languages; and most recently, Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620–1914 (2010), which won the Beveridge Prize from the American Historical Association and was listed by the Wall Street Journal among the best books in early American history. In 2010 he was awarded the Toynbee Prize for 'academic and public contributions to humanity'.