Boyle was appointed a Fulbright scholar in 1997, and spent the school year as Mary Ball Washington Professor at University College Dublin where he taught the history of the American civil rights movement.

In 2004, his Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age won the National Book Award for non-fiction.

[citation needed] In 2021, Boyle released the book The Shattering: America in the 1960s, a historical account of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution, told through the lens of differing historical figures (both major figures and lesser known individuals) as well as everyday Americans.

[3][better source needed] Boyle is currently working on a new book, The Splendid Dead: An American Ordeal, which centers around the story of the infamous anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti.

[citation needed] Boyle sits on the advisory board for the Walter Reuther Library at Wayne State University.

[citation needed] Boyle was honored by the Detroit City Council for The Sweet Trials, a play based on Arc of Justice.