Wallace is a Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (City University of New York), and at the CUNY Graduate Center.

With historian Richard Hofstadter as his adviser, his dissertation examined the emergence of the two-party system.

[10] During the 1980s, Wallace wrote essays about the ways history gets presented – or misrepresented – to the general public, outside of schools and universities.

In 1996, these pieces were collected in a book called Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory.

[15][16] He was formerly married, in December 1969, to Nancy Greenough;[17] in May 1973 to Elizabeth Fee[18][19] and in October 1987 to historian and former Queen of Sikkim, Hope Cooke.