Book launch - The Trials of Thomas Morton

6 March 17:00
Rothermere American Institute, 1a South Parks Road, OX1 3UB

Peter C. Mancall
Professor of History and Anthropology, University of Southern California
Harmsworth Professor Visiting of American History

Responses from Amy Morris (Cambridge), Sonia Tycko (Oxford), and Mark Peterson (Yale)

mancall cover

This riveting biography of Thomas Morton explores the tensions that arose from competing colonial visions and provides a counter-narrative to the familiar story of Puritan New England. A lawyer and fur trader, Thomas Morton dreamed of a society where Algonquian peoples and English colonists could coexist. Infamous for dancing around a maypole in defiance of his Pilgrim neighbours, Morton was reviled for selling guns to the Natives. Colonial authorities exiled him three times from New England, but Morton kept returning to fight for his beliefs.

Peter Mancall is an elected fellow of the Society of American Historians and the Royal Historical Society. His next book will be American Origins, which will form Volume I of the Oxford History of the United States.

The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England appeared with Yale University Press in November 2019 (US) and January 2020 (UK).

This event is open to the public
To be followed by a wine reception

Copies of the book will be available for purchase at a discounted price of £15 (payable by cash or cheque).