Robert Parkinson
Robert Parkinson is a professor of history at SUNY Binghamton.
His research interests are in early American history, especially the American Revolution. His first book, The Common Cause: Creating Nation and Race in the American Revolution (UNC Press, 2016), explores how questions of race collided with pressing issues of nation-building at the Founding. The Heart of American Darkness is a microhistory about how the grisly murder of nine Indians on a tributary of the Ohio River in 1774 exerted a surprisingly powerful influence on the political and rhetorical life of the early American republic.
Parkinson has held fellowships at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg, the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, the David Library of the American Revolution, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, and the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.
His teaching interests include the American Revolution, colonial America, the history of American slavery, Native American history, and nation-making and race in the early modern world.
Select Publications
- Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence (W.W. Norton, 2026)
- Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier (W.W. Norton, 2024)
- Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2021)
- The Common Cause: Creating Race and Nation in the American Revolution (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2016)
863: Robert Parkinson: Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence
I can’t help but copy from my blog post on finishing reading Robert’s book. It describes what to expect from the first half of our conversation and his book. The second half of our conversation relates the revolutionary era and leadership today applied to a situation that is far closer to their situation then than most people see. We can learn from them.
It’s tempting to think of our impact on the environment as an issue of technology, legislation, and stewardship. It’s about liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and security, personal and national, which means enforcing the Constitution that Robert’s book conveys the foundation for.
Here’s my comments on his book:
Wow, I’ve been learning a lot about the revolution, but didn’t realize how much challenge the colonists faced, nor did I learn about the people on the British side.
I knew about the big events and interactions that make the history books like the Stamp Tax, Coercive Acts, Boston Massacre, Lexington and Concord, and the ones you know about. I didn’t know about events like the Gaspée affair, the burning of Falmouth, Gwynn’s Island, and all the British aristocracy and military acting. I had only learned about people like Hutchinson, Gage, Dartmouth, and so on as caricatures, not real people. I didn’t know what motivated them.
Parkinson points out that as much as we value the timeless words of the start and end of the Declaration of Independence, the rebels and patriots acted on the 27 grievances. I’ve read them before and could pick up some of the meaning behind them, but knew little to no detail. This book recounts what all the colonists knew intimately.
Before this book, I had wondered why farmers risked their lives for independence. Sure, they didn’t want to be taxed without representation or imperial soldiers quartered in their homes, but were those things worth dying for? From what I knew before this book, the offenses seemed problematic but something seemed missing. I learned there were far more incidents, many more deadly, and more people involved than I knew of before, yet they drove independence and the revolution.
His writing ties many pieces together, so I kept finding names and places affecting each other and being affected by each other. The book read like a tapestry with a rhythm throughout the book. The head of King George from the statue on Bowling Green starts the book and reappears at the end. The boats and people using them going to and from Gwynn’s Island had me going forward and backward like I was reading a mystery novel or a Christopher Nolan movie. The numbers 42, 45, 88, and 92 recur (two refer to years of British revolutions, 1642 and 1688; one is the edition of a publication, 45; and the other is the number of votes supporting a Circular Letter in support of union, 92).
Finally, each incident tied back to Jefferson, Franklin, the three other editors, and the congress learning about them, figuring out what to make of them, writing them, editing them, and sending the Declaration to the colonies.