David Armitage (born 1 February 1965) is a British historian who has written on international and intellectual history. He has been chair of the
history department and is
Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
.
Early life and education
Armitage was born in
Stockport
Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...
, England, on 1 February 1965, and attended
Stockport Grammar School before attending
St. Catharine's College at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
, where he read English as an undergraduate. After receiving his
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
, he embarked on a
PhD
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
in English, initially intending to write his doctoral dissertation on
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's classical sources and the English
neoclassical poets.
During the course of his research, he became interested in the relationship between
republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self ...
and
empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
in the works of
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...
and was increasingly attracted to the discipline of
intellectual history
Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualization, conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of ...
. Funded by a
Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowship (previously known as the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship) is a program run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. This fellowship was established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several co ...
, he took two years off from his PhD to retrain as a historian at the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
.
He was awarded his doctorate in history from the University Cambridge in 1992. His dissertation, ''The British empire and the civic tradition, 1656–1742'', was a study of the relationship between English literature and Britain's imperial ventures in
the Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.'' Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sin ...
.
Career
After completing his PhD at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
, Armitage remained at the university until 1993, where he was a junior research fellow at
Emmanuel College. He then joined the history faculty at
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. He was awarded a fellowship from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, which he completed in 2000 and 2001. In 2004, he joined the Harvard University faculty, and later became the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History.
In 2008, Harvard University named Armitage a Walter Channing Cabot Fellow for "achievements and scholarly eminence in the fields of literature, history or art".
Australian Academy of the Humanities
The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australi ...
Fellows: Armitage, David, FAHA
. Retrieved 19 June 2014. He is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
, the
Royal Historical Society
The Royal Historical Society (RHS), founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history.
Origins
The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the H ...
and the
Australian Academy of the Humanities
The Australian Academy of the Humanities was established by Royal Charter in 1969 to advance scholarship and public interest in the humanities in Australia. It operates as an independent not-for-profit organisation partly funded by the Australi ...
.
Books
*''The Ideological Origins of the British Empire'' (
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...
, 2000)
*''Greater Britain, 1516–1776: Essays in Atlantic History'' (
Ashgate, 2004)
*''The Declaration of Independence: A Global History'' (
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou.
The pres ...
, 2007)
*''Foundations of Modern International Thought'' (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
*''The History Manifesto'' (with Jo Guldi, Cambridge University Press, 2014)
[Published as an ]Open Access
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...
Boo
*''Civil Wars: A History in Ideas'' (Penguin Random House, 2017)
Edited volumes
*''Milton and Republicanism'' (with Armand Himy and
Quentin Skinner
Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including ...
, Cambridge University Press, 1995)
*''Bolingbroke: Political Writings'' (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
*''Theories of Empire, 1450–1800'' (Ashgate, 1998)
*''The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800'' (with Michael Braddick, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
*''British Political Thought in History, Literature and Theory, 1500–1800'' (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
*'' Shakespeare and Early Modern Political Thought'' (with Conal Condren and Andrew Fitzmaurice, Cambridge University Press, 2009)
*''The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840'' (with
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Palgrave 2010)
*'' Pacific Histories: Ocean, Land, People'' (with Alison Bashford, Palgrave, 2014)
*'' A Cultural History of Peace in the Age of Enlightenment'' (with Stella Ghervas, Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)
Personal life
Armitage was married to Harvard history professor
Joyce Chaplin.
[Potier, Beth (7 October 2004)]
"Historian Armitage follows ideas where they take him"
''Harvard Gazette
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learn ...
''. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
References
External links
Biographyat
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
"Eating One’s Own: Examining Civil War – A Conversation with David Armitage", ''Ideas Roadshow'', 2017
{{DEFAULTSORT:Armitage, David
1965 births
Living people
Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
British historians
Columbia University faculty
Harkness Fellows
Harvard Fellows
Harvard University Department of History faculty
Historians of colonialism
Historians of political thought
Historians of the British Isles