In 1989, he was honored as Teacher of the Year by college students, receiving their 28th annual Mark Van Doren Award for "humanity, devotion to truth, and inspiring leadership".
[17] In November 2016, President Lee Bollinger granted him Columbia University's highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Medal, during a black-tie dinner in Low Memorial Library.
Furthermore, he has served as a Fulbright Lecturer in Germany, Australia, and Japan, and as a visiting professor at Princeton, UCLA, and the George Washington University.
[20] Subsequently, he founded and served as the inaugural chairman of the National Council for History Education, an organization with a similar mission.
He also served on the New York State Social Studies Syllabus Review Committee in 1990 and the National Council for History Standards between 1992 and 1996.
Working alongside Leonard Dinnerstein, he produced seven editions of American Vistas from 1970 to 1998, and co-authored Empire City: New York Through the Centuries (Columbia, 2002) with David Dunbar.
His publication Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (Oxford, 1985) earned recognition from the History Book Club and was featured in special sessions at prominent historical conventions.
It received prestigious accolades including the Francis Parkman[31] and Bancroft Prizes, and was listed among the New York Times notable books of the year.