LEXINGTON, Va. Feb. 13, 2025 — Virginia Military Institute welcomes Robert G. Parkinson, Ph.D., award winning historian of the American Revolution and author of “Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier,” on Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 8 p.m. in Moody Hall. The event is free and open to the public.  

Parkinson will address the bewilderment, chaos, disorder and complexities during the American Revolution, and highlight individual stories of the nation’s founding. Following his talk, there will be a Q&A session.  

Parkinson serves as professor of history at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. He has held fellowships at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia; the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience in Chestertown, Maryland; the Library Company of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg, the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky; the David Library of the American Revolution in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania; the Clements Library at the University of Michigan; and the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. He received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee, and his doctorate from the University of Virginia. 

Copies of “Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier,” may be purchased on Amazon.  

The event is sponsored by the Dean’s Academic Speakers Program and the Department of History.  

-VMI-