The Declaration of Independence. Discuss.

An On Discourse Event

David Armitage (Harvard)

David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and former Chair of History at Harvard University. He earned his BA from St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and his MA and PhD from Cambridge University. In 2015, Cambridge awarded him its highest degree, the LittD for “distinction by some original contribution to the advancement of science or of learning.” Armitage is currently a Senior Scholar of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, an Affiliated Faculty Member at Harvard Law School, an Affiliated Professor in the Harvard Department of Government, an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, an Honorary Professor of History at Queen’s University Belfast, and an Honorary Professor of History at the University of Sydney. He is an International Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and Member of the Academia Europaea. Before moving to Harvard in 2004, he taught for eleven years at Columbia University. Armitage is a prize-winning teacher and writer. He is the author or editor of nineteen books, most recently The Political Thought of John Locke: New Perspectives (co-ed., 2026). Some of his earlier works include The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007), which was chosen as a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. His articles and essays have appeared in journals, newspapers, and collections around the world. His works have been translated into sixteen languages.