2016 Matthew Kruer (University of Pennsylvania), "Our Time of Anarchy": Bacon’s Rebellion and the Wars of the Susquehannocks, 1675-1682 (Harvard University Press, 2022)

Kruer's dissertation is a brilliantly accomplished study of the civil wars that embroiled the inhabitants of eastern North America in the late 17th century. By looking carefully at seven crucial years, Kruer reopens what we thought were settled questions about Bacon’s Rebellion and offers a compelling account of a contested continent. Grief and fear gripped Native American and colonial communities alike, feeding a spiral of violence and disorder, settled only when the Susquehannocks won wars that put a native stamp on a continental order. Kruer’s time span may be short but the stakes of his story—for the history of North America and for American historiography—are enormous.     

Kruer earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania under the supervision of Professor Daniel K. Richter, and is now teaching at the University of Oklahoma.