Distinguished Lecturers
Peter Charles Hoffer

Peter Charles Hoffer

Peter Charles Hoffer is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia, where he has taught since 1978. He teaches and writes on early American history, legal history, and historical methods. A graduate student of Bernard Bailyn while at Harvard University, Hoffer has also taught at Ohio State University, the University of Notre Dame, and Brooklyn College. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including: The Search for Justice: Lawyers in the Civil Rights Revolution, 1950–1975 (2019), A Nation of Laws: America’s Imperfect Pursuit of Justice (2010), Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 (2011), For Ourselves and Our Posterity: The Preamble to the Constitution in American History (2012), Prelude to Revolution: The Salem Gunpowder Raid of 1775 (2013), Benjamin Franklin Explains the Stamp Act Protests to Parliament, 1766 (2015), Rutgers v. Waddington: Alexander Hamilton, the End of the War for Independence, and the Origins of Judicial Review (2016), John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835-1850 (2017), and Uncivil Warriors: The Lawyers' Civil War (2018). Hoffer is also an avid coauthor, and his collaborators have included his wife N. E. H. Hull and his sons, Williamjames Hull Hoffer and Louis Hoffer. He is most recently a coauthor, with Hull and Williamjames Hull Hoffer, of The Federal Courts: An Essential History (2016) and, with Williamjames Hull Hoffer, of The Clamor of Lawyers: The Coming of the American Revolution and Crisis in the Legal Profession (2018).