Past Edmondson Lectures

The Charles Edmondson Historical Lectures, sponsored by the Department of History at Baylor University, are made possible by an endowment established by Dr. E. Bud Edmondson of Longview, Texas, to honor his father, Mr. Charles S. B. Edmondson. Baylor University and the Waco community are grateful to Dr. Edmondson for his generosity.

Spring 2024  Leslie Alexander, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History, Rutgers Unversity and Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, "The Cradle of Hope: How Haitian Independence Inspired the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States" and "How We Got Here: Slavery and the Making of the Modern Police State"

Fall 2022  James Oakes, Humanities Chair, Distinguished Professor of History, Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies, The City University of New York, "The New Nation: A House Already Divided" and "Taking Antislavery Seriously"

Spring 2022  David Bell, Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions and the Director of the Shelby Cullom David Center, Princeton University, "France and the Jews: A Double-Edged History" and "The Life and Legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte"

2019/2020 Mark C. Elliott, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese & Inner Asian History, Harvard University, "The Historical Silk Road and the Belt-and-Road Initiative" and "History and Politics in China Today: The Reception of the New Qing History" 

2018/2019 R. Marie Griffith, John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics Director and Distinguished Professor, Washington University in St. Louis, "The Culture Wars in the Early 20th Century: Suffrage, Birth Control, and Censorship" and "The Culture Wars in the Later 20th Century: Marriage, Sex Education, and the Long Road to #MeToo"

2017/2018 Ethan H. Shagan, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley, "Problems of Belief in Early Modern England: How Belief Became Hard" and "How Belief Became Free"

2016/2017 Jacalyn Duffin, Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine, Queens University, and Fellow, Royal Society of Canada (RSC), "The History of Medicine"

2015/2016 Lynn Hunt, Distinguished Research Professor and Eugen Weber Endowed Chair in Modern European History, UCLA, "The History of Human Rights"

2014/2015 Barbara Cooper, Professor of History, Rutgers University, "Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel"

2013/2014 Helen Horowitz, Smith College, "Thinking About the Mind and Body in Nineteenth-century America"

2012/2013 Deborah Cohen, Peter B. Ritzma Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History, Northwestern University, "Family Secrets: Shame and Privacy in Modern Britain"

2011/2012 Donald J. Raleigh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Russian's Cold War Generation and the End of the Soviet Dream"

2010/2011 Kristin Mann, Emory University, "Trans-Atlantic Lives: Slavery and Freedom in West Africa and Brazil"

2009/2010 Judith Bennett, Professor of History, University of Southern California. "Death and the Maiden in Chaucer's England", "Purity and Prurience" and "Suicides and Sirens"

2008/2009 Ray Van Dam, Professor, Department of History; Director, Interdepartmental Program in Greek and Roman History; Adjunct Professor, Department of Classical Studies and Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan. "Rome and Constantinople: Rewriting Roman History during Late Antiquity"

2007/2008 Donald Worster, Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Distinguished Professor of American History, University of Kansas, "A Life in Nature: Environmental Biography as a New Kind of History" and "On John Muir's Trail: Nature in an Age of Liberal Principles"

2006/2007 Steven Ozment, McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History, Harvard University, "Lucas Cranach, the Elder, in Art and History" and "Cranach's Nudes: Art and Reform"

2005/2006 Charles Reagan Wilson, University of Mississippi, "The Religion of the American South in Global Perspective"

2004/2005 Peter J. Stearns, George Mason University, "Growing Up: The History of Childhood in a Global Context"

2003/2004 David J. Weber, Southern Methodist University, "Spanish Borderlands and Wild Indians"

2002/2003 Gary B. Nash, University of California at Los Angeles, "Imagining Life in the Americas"

2001/2002 Yvonne Haddad, Georgetown University, "American Muslims in Transition"

2000/2001 Linda Kerber, University of Iowa, "Gender and Inequality"

1999/2000 Geoffrey Parker, Ohio State University, "The World is Not Enough: The Imperial Vision of Phillip II of Spain"

1998/1999 Leon F. Litwach, University of California, Berkeley, "Wade in the Water: African-Americans and Race Relations"

1997/1998 Alan Brinkley, Columbia University, "Culture and Politics in the Great Depression"

1996/1997 David N. Cannadine, Columbia University, "Britain in Decline?"

1995/1996 Johnathan D. Spence, Yale University, "The Taiping Vision of a Christian China(1836-1864)"

1994/1995 Franklin W. Knight, Johns Hopkins University, "Race, Class, and Ethnicity in Latin America and the Caribbean"

1993/1994 Phillip D. Curtin, Johns Hopkins University, "Why People Move: Migration in African History"

1992/1993 Nell Irvin Painter, Princeton University, "Soul Murder and Slavery"

1991/1992 Geoffrey A. Hosking, University of London, "Empire and Nation in Russian History"

1990/1991 Dan T. Carter, Emory University, "George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and the Transformation of American Politics"

1989/1990 Stephen B. Oates, University of Massachusetts, "Biography: The Heart of History" and "How the Trumpet Came to Sound: The Process and Perils of Writing a Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr."

1988/1989 Robert Darnton, Princeton University, "The French Revolution at Street Level" and "From Enlightenment to Revolution"

1987/1988 Gerda Lerner, University of Wisconsin, "Sex and Class: A Revisionist Perspective"

1986/1987 Gordon S. Wood, Brown University, "The Making of the Constitution"

1985/1986 Peter Gay, Yale University, "Aggression: Toward a Theory of Aggression" and "Humor: Aggression at Work"

1984/1985 William E. Leuchtenburg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "The 1984 Presidential Election in History Perspective: From Civil War to the New Deal; From Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan"

1983/1984 C. Vann Woodward, Yale University, emeritus, "Continuing Themes in Southern History: The Strange Career of Jim Crow, 1954-1984; and The Burden of Southern History, 1952-1984"

1982/1983 Robert L. Heilbroner, The New School for Social Research, "Capitalism in Transition: The Twentieth Century"

1981/1982 William H. McNeill, University of Chicago, "The Great Frontier: Freedom and Hierarchy in Modern Times"

1980/1981 Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago, "Religious Crises in Modern America: Modernism and Fundamentalism"

1979/1980 Walter LeFeber, Cornell University, "The Third Cold War: Kissinger Years and Carter Years"

1977/1978 Paul K. Conkin, University of Wisconsin, "American Christianity in Crisis: Religious Rationalism and Darwinism"