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Lycoming College’s Humanities Research Center (HRC) will host historian Robert Parkinson, Ph.D., for a public lecture on his recent book, “Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence” (Norton, 2026), on Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. in the Trogner Presentation Room, Krapf Gateway Center. The event is free and open to the Williamsport community.
Parkinson, a professor of history at Binghamton University, returns to Lycoming College for his third visit to campus. His lecture will center on the argument at the heart of his new book: that the Declaration of Independence is best understood not through its celebrated preamble, but through the twenty-seven specific grievances against King George III that make up the bulk of the document. Parkinson contends that the Founders regarded these grievances as the essential part of the Declaration, and that the concerns that alarmed colonists in 1776 remain urgent today.
The event is timed to coincide with the America 250 celebration, the national semiquincentennial commemoration of the United States' founding.
“His work challenges us to read the Declaration not as a finished monument, but as a living argument, and one that still speaks to the tensions at the center of American democracy.”
“As the nation marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Robert Parkinson's lecture offers the Williamsport community a rare opportunity to engage with one of the foremost scholars of the American Revolution,” said Christopher Pearl, Ph.D., professor of history at Lycoming College and interim director of the HRC. “His work challenges us to read the Declaration not as a finished monument, but as a living argument, and one that still speaks to the tensions at the center of American democracy.”
The book has drawn significant praise. “Is there anything new to say about the Declaration of Independence? In this brilliant new book, Robert G. Parkinson offers an emphatic yes. . . This is a vitally important book to be read in 2026 and beyond,” wrote Francis D. Cogliano, author of “Revolutionary America, 1763–1815: A Political History.” Kirkus Reviews awarded the book a starred review, calling it “a fresh reading of the Declaration of Independence . . . a timely and highly useful book in this semiquincentennial year — and far beyond.”
Parkinson is the author of four books on Revolutionary America, including “Heart of American Darkness: A Story of Murder and Revolution on the Early Frontier” (Norton, 2024). He has held fellowships at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Rockefeller Library at Colonial Williamsburg, the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, the David Library of the American Revolution, the Clements Library at the University of Michigan, and the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. His teaching interests include the American Revolution, colonial America, the history of American slavery, Native American history, and nation-making and race in the early modern world. He holds a doctoral degree from the University of Virginia, and bachelors and masters degrees from University of Tennessee.
“Tyrants and Rogues: Understanding the Declaration of Independence,” is for sale at The Otto Bookstore in downtown Williamsport. The book will also be sold at the lecture.
The Humanities Research Center enhances educational opportunities for students majoring or minoring in any of the humanities by supporting collaborative student-faculty research, internships, guided scholarship, study abroad opportunities, education certification, digital humanities, graduate school placement, and fellowships. The Lycoming College history program offers an intensive and enriching curriculum that helps students cultivate valuable insights about current events through a deep knowledge of the past.