Robert Tinkler

Research

Professor Tinkler specializes in the history of the early American Republic, the Civil War and Reconstruction era, and the American South.

Publications

Professor Tinkler’s book, James Hamilton of South Carolina (LSU, 2004), explores the life of a key antebellum southern political figure who led the nullification effort in South Carolina and served in Europe as a diplomat for the Republic of Texas. Despite his political power, James Hamilton also experienced terrific setbacks, including enormous debts. In short, he exemplified, Tinkler suggests, the challenges faced by the planter class as a whole. Professor Daniel Feller, editor of the Andrew Jackson Papers at the University of Tennessee, calls this book “an engaging read and a model of how individual biography can illuminate larger themes.” Professor James Brewer Stewart of Macalester College and former president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR) has written of Tinkler’s book: “This is a study that commands the attention of serious students of pre-Civil War politics and of those who appreciate artful biography.”

Professor Tinkler has also contributed entries to such reference works as The Companion to Southern Literature (LSU, 2001), The South Carolina Encyclopedia (South Carolina Humanities Council, 2006) and The Political Lincoln: An Encyclopedia (Congressional Quarterly, 2008), as well as reviews to The Journal of Southern History, The Journal of American History, and The Journal of the Early Republic, among others.