T. Cole Jones

Colonial and Revolutionary America, the Atlantic World, the Cultural History of Violence, War and Society

T. Cole Jones received his Ph.D. in early American history from the Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in history from Duke University. His first book, Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution (Penn Press, 2020) won the 2021 Society of the Cincinnati Prize from the American Revolution Institute and was a finalist for the Journal of the American Revolution 2020 Book of the Year Award. Captives of Liberty was reviewed in New York Times, Choice Reviews, Reviews in American History, Journal of the Early Republic, William and Mary Quarterly, Social History, Journal of the American Revolution, History: Reviews of New Books, Journal of Early American History, and Strategypage.com.

Jones has published numerous articles in academic journals and edited collections, including New England Quarterly, Journal of the Early Republic, Journal of Military History, and Common-Place. He has received fellowships from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the United States Army Center of Military History, and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, among others. Prior to coming to Purdue, he was the Hench Post-Dissertation Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the New-York Historical Society.

Jones is at work on his next book, which is provisionally entitled, The Tory Rising: Insurrection in the Revolutionary South. He has received fellowships to support this research from the Virginia Historical Society, the David Library of the American Revolution, and the Georgian Papers Programme from King's College London and George Washington's Mount Vernon.

Jones welcomes inquiries from prospective graduate students interested in the era of the American Revolution.

List of Publications







"Citizen for Citizen: The Problem of Political Prisoners in the American Revolution,” in Lorien Foote and Daniel Krebs, eds., Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2021).

His first book, Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press Early American Studies Series in 2020."
https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/16007.html 

“’Elated with victory, and reeking with revenge’: The Yorktown Prisoners and the Laws of War in Revolutionary America,” in Glenn Moots and Philip Hamilton eds., Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American War of Independence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018).