John Thornton

Professor of History

Email: jkthorn@bu.edu
Phone: 617-358-1423

B.A. History, University of Michigan; M.A., Ph.D. History, University of California, Los Angeles

After having taught at Millersville University since 1986, John Thornton joined the Boston University faculty in fall 2003. His specializations include Africa and the Middle East, as well as world history. He is the author of The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641-1718 (1983); Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic world, 1400-1680 (1992); The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706 (1998); Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800 (1999);  and in 2007 with Linda Heywood published Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 2007), which won the Melville J. Herskovits Prize that year.