He is the author of two books, Songs of Zion: The African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and South Africa and the recently published Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005. He is also co-editor of a forthcoming anthology, Race, Nation, and Empire in American History, slated to appear in 2007. Campbell has received numerous fellowships and awards, including the Carl Sandburg Literary Prize for Non-fiction and the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Prize. Before coming to Brown, he taught at Northwestern University and at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.