Who Wrote That? examines nine authorship controversies, providing an introduction to particular disputes and teaching students how to assess historical documents, archival materials, and apocryphal stories, as well as internet sources and news. Donald Ostrowski does not argue in favor of one side over another but focuses on the principles of attribution used to make each case.

While furthering the field of authorship studies, Who Wrote That? provides an essential resource for instructors at all levels in various subjects. It is ultimately about historical detective work. Using Moses, Analects, the Secret Gospel of Mark, Abelard and Heloise, the Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din, Shakespeare, Prince Andrei Kurbskii, James MacPherson, and Mikhail Sholokov, Ostrowski builds concrete examples that instructors can use to help students uncover the legitimacy of authorship and to spark the desire to turn over the hidden layers of history so necessary to the craft.

Donald Ostrowski is Research Advisor in the Social Science and Lecturer in History at Harvard University's Extension School. He is the author of more than 150 publications including his edition of The Pověst vremennykh lět [Tale of Bygone Years], which received the Early Slavic Studies Association Award for Distinguished Scholarship.

This is a rigorous and fascinating investigation of alleged authors from Moses and Confucius to Abelard and Heloise, Shakespeare and an obscure Bolshevik journalist, among others. Along the way, Ostrowski discusses the multitude of factors and circumstances, as many as twenty, that come into play in the process of author attribution.

Kevin Gilvary, author of Fictional Lives of Shakespeare:

This is an incisive, critical review of a remarkably wide range of attribution debates. I believe that I am widely read but I was astonished at the sheer scale of the different treatments in this study.

Peter Stearns, George Mason University:

This is a very interesting, original and impressive book. The scholarship is truly admirable.