Peter S. Onuf is an American historian and professor known for his work on

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the natio ...

and Federalism. In 1989, he was named the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

, a chair he held until retiring in 2012.University of Virginia bio page
/ref> The chair's previous occupants included Jefferson biographers

Dumas Malone Dumas Malone (January 10, 1892 – December 27, 1986) was an American historian, biographer, and editor noted for his six-volume biography on Thomas Jefferson, '' Jefferson and His Time'', for which he received the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for history ...

and

Merrill D. Peterson Merrill Daniel Peterson (31 March 1921 – 23 September 2009) was a history professor at the University of Virginia and the editor of the prestigious Library of America edition of the selected writings of Thomas Jefferson. Peterson wrote several bo ...

; he was succeeded by Alan Taylor.

Life

A native New Englander, Onuf graduated from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

, where he worked with eminent early American historian

Jack P. Greene Jack Philip Greene (born August 12, 1931) is an American historian, specializing in Colonial American history and Atlantic history. Greene was born in Lafayette, Indiana and received his PhD from Duke University in 1956. He spent most of his car ...

. He taught at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a Private university, private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1865 in Worcester, WPI was one of the United States' first engineering and technology universities and now has 14 ac ...

, and

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , ...

. In 2008, he held the

Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professor of American History The Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professorship is an endowed chair in American history at the University of Oxford, tenable for one year. The Harmsworth Professorship was established by Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere (1868–194 ...

chair at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Onuf also acted as a cohost for the radio show '' BackStory with the American History Guys''. In 2014, he taught a free online U-Va. course on Thomas Jefferson.

Publications

*''(with Annette Gordon-Reed) "Most Blessed of the Patriarchs": Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination,'' Liveright, 2016. *''The Mind of Thomas Jefferson''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007. *(with Nicholas G. Onuf). ''Nations, Markets, and War: Modern History and the American Civil War'', Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006. *ed. (with James Horn and Jan Ellen Lewis). ''The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic''. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002. *''Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood''. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001. *(with Leonard Sadosky) ''Jeffersonian America''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell's, 2001. *ed. (with Jan Ellen Lewis). ''Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture''. University Press of Virginia, 1999. *(with Edward L. Ayers, Patricia N. Limerick, and Stephen Nissenbaum). ''All Over the Map: Rethinking Region and Nation in the United States''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. *ed. ''Jeffersonian Legacies''. University Press of Virginia, 1993. *(with Nicholas G. Onuf), ''Federal Union, Modern World: The Law of Nations in an Age of Revolution, 1776–1814''. Madison House, 1993. * ''Patriots, redcoats, and loyalists'' New York : Garland, 1991. *(with Cathy D. Matson), ''A Union of Interests: Politics and Economics in Revolutionary America'', University Press of Kansas. 1990. *(with Andrew R. L. Cayton), ''The Midwest and the Nation''. Indiana University Press, 1990. *''Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance''. Indiana University Press, 1987. *''Origins of the Federal Republic: Jurisdictional Controversies in the United States, 1775–1787''. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Onuf, Peter S. Living people Johns Hopkins University alumni University of Virginia faculty 20th-century American historians 21st-century American historians Historians of the United States Year of birth missing (living people) American male non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers