David Hancock will be coming to speak at the Library Series seminar Wednesday, April 13, 2011, on “The Body in the Library: Structure and the Collection of Useful Material in Early-Modern England and America.”


David Hancock is Professor in the Department of History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he has taught since 2008. He received an A.B. in history and music from the College of William and Mary, an A.M. in Music from Yale University, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. He has been a Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 2003, and is currently a Visiting Professor and Research Fellow at Queen Mary’s School of Business and Management and its Centre for Globalisation Research, University of London, 2008. He directs Michigan’s Atlantic Studies Initiative, and serves on the editorial boards of Enterprise and Society, the list-serv H-Atlantic, History Compass, and Journal of the Early Republic.

Professor Hancock is the author of the forthcoming publications, The Papers of John Hull, Massachusetts Mintmaster, 1635-1683 and Public Drinking in the Early Modern World: Voices from the Tavern, 1500-1800, Volume IV: America. He has also published numerous essays, including: “Organizing Our Thoughts: ‘Global Systems’ and the Challenge of Writing a More Complex History,” in Journal of the Historical Society (2010); “Atlantic Trade and Commodities, 1450-1820,” in Atlantic History: A Handbook (2010); “The Triumphs of Mercury: Connection and Control in the Emerging Atlantic Economy,” in Soundings in Atlantic History (2009);“Combining Success and Failure: Scottish Networks in the Atlantic Wine Trade,” in Irish and Scottish Mercantile Networks in Europe and Overseas in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (2007); “Planting East Florida: The Harsh Reality of the Mosquito’s Bite Plantation,” in Major Problems in American Business History (2005); “Rethinking the Economy of British America,” in The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives & New Directions (2005); and “L’émergence d’une économie de réseau (1640-1815),” in Annales, histoire, sciences socials (2003)

Dr. Hancock’s lecture is entitled “The Body in the Library: Structure and the Collection of Useful Material in Early-Modern England and America.”

Please RSVP and join us in the Lecture Hall at 38 West 86th Street, between Columbus Ave and Central Park West, at 5:45pm for a reception before the talk.