Lawrence Clayton

Short Biography

Lawrence Clayton’s research in the past 10 years has focused on the life of the Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas (1485–1566). A short book, Bartolomé de las Casas and the Conquest of the Indies is in preparation for an undergraduate series published by Wiley Blackwell while a much longer biography is now under review by several university presses. His earlier books include a textbook co-authored with Michael Conniff, A History of Modern Latin America (2003), Peru and the United States: the Condor and the Eagle (1998), and The De Soto Chronicles (1985) which he co-edited. He received his undergraduate degree from Duke and his PhD from Tulane where he studied with Richard Greenleaf. In between Duke and Tulane he spent two years in the Navy as an officer on an amphibious warfare ship with numerous cruises in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. He has been on the faculty at the University of Alabama since 1972 in the Department of History and also directs the Latin American Studies Program.