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Peter Mancall

Distinguished Professor, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the Early Modern Studies Institute and Professor of History, Anthropology, and Economics
Peter Mancall
Email mancall@usc.edu Office SOS 284 Office Phone (213) 821-2151

Research & Practice Areas

Colonial North America, early modern Atlantic world, environmental, and Native American history.

Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations

  • USC Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, Director

Biography

Peter C. Mancall is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities; Professor of History and Anthropology; the Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute; and Divisional for the Humanities at USC Dornsife.   He is the author of seven books including NATURE AND CULTURE IN THE EARLY MODERN ATLANTIC (Penn, 2018); FATAL JOURNEY: THE FINAL EXPEDITION OF HENRY HUDSON–A TALE OF MUTINY AND MURDER IN THE ARCTIC (Basic Books, 2009); HAKLUYT’S PROMISE: AN ELIZABETHAN’S OBSESSION FOR AN ENGLISH AMERICA (Yale, 2007) DEADLY MEDICINE: INDIANS AND ALCOHOL IN EARLY AMERICA (Cornell, 1995); and, most recently, THE TRIALS OF THOMAS MORTON: AN ANGLICAN LAWYER, HIS PURITAN FOES, AND THE BATTLE FOR A NEW ENGLAND (Yale, 2019). He is currently writing AMERICAN ORIGINS, which will be volume one of the Oxford History of the United States. In 2012 he delivered the Mellon Distinguished Lectures in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is an elected fellow of the Society of American Historians and the Royal Historical Society and an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.  He was the Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University in the 2019-2020 academic year.

Education

  • Ph.D. History, Harvard University, 1/1986
  • A.B. History, Oberlin College, 5/1981

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Chair, Department of History, University of Southern California, 2010 – 2013
    • Associate Vice Provost for Research Advancement, University of Southern California, 2007 – 2009
    • Professor of History and Anthropology, University of Southern California, 08/01/2005 –
    • Director, USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, 08/01/2003 –
    • Professor of History, University of Southern California, 08/01/2001 –
    • Professor, University of Kansas, 08/01/1989 – 07/31/2001

  • Research Keywords

    early America, Atlantic World, Native American

  • Book

    • Mancall, P. C. (2018). Nature and Culture in the Early Modern Atlantic. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
    • Mancall, P. C.American Origins (vol. one of the Oxford History of the United States). New York: Oxford University Press.
    • Bleichmar, Daniela and Mancall, Peter C. (Ed.). (2011). Collecting Across Cultures: Material Exchanges in the Early Modern Atlantic World. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2009). Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson: A Tale of Mutiny and Murder in the Arctic. New York: Basic Books.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2007). Hakluyt’s Promise: An Elizabethan’s Obsession for an English America. New Haven, COnn.: Yale University Press.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2007). The Atlantic World and Virginia. University of North Carolina Press.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2007). Bringing the World to Early Modern Europe: Travel Accounts and Their Audiences.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2006). Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery. Oxford University Press.
    • Mancall, P. C., Hinderaker, E. (2003). At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
    • Mancall, P. C., Hoxie, F., Merrell, J. H. (2001). American Nations: Encounters in Indian Country, 1850 to 2000. London, UK / New York, NY: Routledge.
    • Mancall, P. C., Merrell, J. H. (2000). American Encounters: Natives and Newcomers From European Contact through Removal, 1500-1850. London, UK / New York, NY: Routledge.
    • Mancall, P. C., Hoagland, E. (1996). Land of Rivers: America in Word and Image. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    • Mancall, P. C. (1995). Deadly Medicine: Indians and Alcohol in Early America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
    • Mancall, P. C. (1995). Envisioning America: English Plans for the Colonization of North America, 1580-1640. Bedford/St. Martin’s.
    • Mancall, P. C. (1991). Valley of Opportunity: Economic Culture along the Upper Susquehanna, 1700-1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Essay

    • Mancall, P. C. (2009). “Why a Fourth Grader Knows More About Henry Hudson Than You Do”. Chronicle of Higher Education.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2009). “Judging Henry Hudson”. History News Network.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2009). “Northern Exposure: Henry Hudson’s First Journey to the North Pole”. Huntington Frontiers.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2009). “Strangers In A New Land: Henry Hudson’s First American Journey”. American Heritage.

    Journal Article

    • Mancall, P. C. (2013). The Raw and the Cold: Five English Sailors in Sixteenth-Century Nunavut”. William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 70 (1), pp. 3-40.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2010). “Pigs for Historians: Changes in the Land and beyond,”. William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 3rd Ser, LXVII, pp. 347-375.
    • Mancall, P. C., Rosenbloom, J., Weiss, T. (2006). “Slave Prices, the African Slave Trade, and Productivity in Eighteenth-Century South Carolina: A Reply,”. Journal of Economic History. Vol. 66 (4), pp. 1066-1071.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2004). Tales Tobacco Told in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Environmental History/Environmental History Association. pp. p. 648-678.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2004). Robert Plot’s Natural History of Oxford-Shire. Environmental History/Environmental History Association. pp. p. 300-305.

    Other

    • Mancall, P. C. (2007). Travel Writing in the Early Modern World, special issue of Huntington Library Quarterly.
    • Mancall, P. C. (2006). Origins and Ideologies of the American Revolution. 48 30-minute lectures.
    • USC Endowed Professorship, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History and Anthropology, 2012/03/07
    • Harmsworth Professor of American History, Oxford University, 2019-2020
    • Mellon Distinguished Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania, 2011-2012
    • Elected Fellow, Society of American Historians, 2009-2010
    • USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award, 2009-2010
    • Elected Member, American Antiquarian Society, 2008-2009
    • USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Senior Faculty Award, 2008-2009
    • British Scholar Book of the Month (September 2007) for Hakluyt’s Promise, 2007-2008
    • USC Center for Excellence in Research, Faculty Fellow, 2007-2008
    • Huntington Library Research Fellowship Recipient, 2004-2005
    • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Recipient, 2001-2002
    • Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand ALAC Research Fellowship, Fall 1998
    • Charles Warren Center, Harvard University, Fellow, 1991-1992

  • Administrative Appointments

    • Chair, Department of History, 2010-2011
    • Associate Vice Provost for Research Advancement, 2008-2009
    • Associate Vice Provost for Research Advancement, 2007-2008

    Committees

    • Director, USC Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute (EMSI)
      , 2010-2011
    • Member, USC College Humanities Council, 2009-2010

  • Editorships and Editorial Boards

    • editorial board, Itinerario, 2006 –
    • editorial board, Huntington Library Quarterly, 2004 –
    • Series editor for Perspectives in American Social History, ABC-Clio, 2004 – 2011
    • Editorial board, William and Mary Quarterly, 2010-2011
    • editorial board, Journal of American History, 2005 – 2008
    • Section Editor, Early American History, History Compass, 2004 – 2008
    • editorial board, Reviews in American History, 1998 – 2008
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