Miller is a U.S. cultural historian who uses popular music to explore the cultural, economic, legal, and intellectual history of the United States. His book Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow (Duke, 2010) rethinks the origins of blues and country music. He is currently working on a book titled Sound Investments: A History of Music Ownership and Theft, which examines recent debates about illegal music file-sharing over the internet within the context of the long historical struggles over the meaning and control of music as property. Miller received a PhD in history from New York University in 2002.