His mother, Cora Irene (Templeton), worked for a church society; his father, Charles Grier Sellers, was an executive at Standard Oil and was descended from a family of "two-mule farmers".

[3] He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College in History and Literature in 1947 (Class of 1945), graduating Magna Cum Laude.

His graduation was delayed until 1947 by service in the 85th Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division (the ski troops) of the United States Army.

[7] He later served as the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University during the 1970–71 academic year.

[12] When it was first published in 1991, Charles Sellers’ book The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 represented a major scholarly challenge to what had been, until then, one of the central tenets of U.S. history: that of democracy and capitalism marching together, in lockstep.

[15] Sellers' book – which synthesized a wealth of extremely diverse sources to make its case – has profoundly impacted all subsequent debates surrounding the Market Revolution in the United States.