Department Faculty

“I am primarily a historian of early America, with secondary interests in Pennsylvania history, and historiography/historical theory. My first two books were on eighteenth-century Massachusetts; next I edited several books on New York history; from 1994-2002 I edited the journal Pennsylvania History and a series of volumes on that topic; I have also written books on history and semiotics, the Icelandic sagas, the films of Derek Jarman, and the history of early American Jews to 1815. I am now writing a history of the (John) Jay family, America's first chief justice and a lengthy article on the Church of England in Pennsylvania during the American Revolution.” My book Jews and Gentiles in Early America (University of Michigan Press, 2005) was the runner-up for the National Book Award in American Jewish History 2005. I was appointed Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians for the period 2006-2009.