Topic: Sir Walter Ralegh & Thomas Harriot

Bio: Alan Gallay is on the Texas Christian University faculty as the Lyndon B. Johnson Chair in U.S. History. He received his B.A. from the University of Florida, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Georgetown University. Formerly, Gallay was at Ohio State University, where he held the Warner R. Woodring Chair in Atlantic World and Early American history and was Director of The Center for Historical Research. Twice the recipient of year-long fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Gallay also held appointments as a Mellon Faculty Fellow at Harvard University and as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

A specialist in colonial history, particularly in the history of the South, Native America, slavery, and religion, Gallay is an author and editor of numerous essays and books. His most recent books are “Colonial and Revolutionary America” (Prentice Hall, 2010), “Indian Slavery in Colonial America” (Nebraska, 2009), a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title. His best-known book, “The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717” (Yale, 2002), received the Bancroft Prize, the Washington State Book Award, and other accolades, including selection by Library Journal as one of the ten most important books on American Indians, published over the previous thirty years.

Gallay’s latest book, “Walter Ralegh, Architect of Empire” was published in 2019. It includes an important comparative element, as Gallay documents the simultaneous English colonization of Roanoke with Ireland and Guiana.