I’m Vaughn Scribner, an Associate Professor of British American History at the University of Central Arkansas. Welcome to my website!
My research investigates colonial American history in a global context, striving to understand how early modern Britons sought to define their positions in the empire.
My scholarship reflects my broad interests, ranging from colonial American tavern going, to the complex history of humanity’s obsession with merpeople, to early modern Britons’ never-ending pursuit of mastery over the natural world.
Merpeople: A Human History (Reaktion Books, 2020)
A global history which uses merpeople to gain a deeper understanding of one of the most mysterious, capricious, and dangerous creatures on earth: humans (purchase link in title).
Inn Civility: Urban Taverns and Early American Civil Society (NYU Press, 2019)
A cultural history of colonial America which investigates how urban tavern going ultimately revealed—and impelled—a crisis of civil society in the late eighteenth century (purchase link in title).
Scholarly Articles and Book Chapters
From pleasure gardens to Enlightenment science to Caribbean sugar plantations to a boy prince in Revolutionary America, my article-length works explore the mutability of the eighteenth-century British Empire.
I am also passionate about reaching a broader audience. To that end, I have published various articles (including a cover story for History Today, May 2018), in addition to conducting numerous interviews (television, podcast, in-person) and public presentations/exhibits. Please reach out if you would like to collaborate!
Interview with Kay Burley on Sky News (UK, Oct. 12, 2017)
My Cover Story, “Diving into Mysterious Waters,” in History Today 65: 5 (May 2018).