Dr. Ben Lowe

Ph.D., Georgetown University
Professor, Fellow of The Royal Historical Society

Areas of Expertise

• Tudor-Stuart England
• Early Modern Europe
• European Religious and Intellectual History

Email: bplowe@fau.edu
Office Phone: 561-297-3951

Dr. Lowe joined FAU’s History Department in 1993 and has served as both Graduate Director (2006-2013) and Department Chair (2013-2022). He specializes in early modern European history with particular attention to the mid-Tudor period. His research focuses on religion, social ideology, and political culture during the early English Reformation (c.1530-60). His interests include the history of political thought and comparative martyrdom. His book, Commonwealth and the English Reformation: Protestantism and Religious Change in the Gloucester Vale, 1483-1560 (Routledge, 2010), examines the initial process of reform as carried out by local leaders in the city of Gloucester and the surrounding area. He also published “A Short Reformation? A Case for Recalculating the Chronology of Religious Change in Sixteenth Century England,” Anglican and Episcopal History 82 (2013): 409-47. He is currently working on a book about Bishop John Hooper (executed in 1555) and how his theology was interpreted over time and aided in the development of early evangelical social thought.

Dr. Lowe’s latest book, Political Thought and the Origins of the American Presidency (University Press of Florida, 2021) is an edited volume of essays by some of the premier intellectual historians of the early American Republic, and includes his chapter, “Political Thought and the Intellectual Origins of the American Presidency: Royalism, Executive Power and the History of Ideas.”

An expert on early peace history, Dr. Lowe has published extensively in the field, including his book, Imagining Peace: A History of Early English Pacifist Thought, 1340-1560 (Penn State Press, 1997). His extended essay, “The Idea of Peace in the European Middle Ages” was recently published in the Oxford Handbook of Peace History (Oxford University Press, 2022). He has also published essays on peace history in the Oxford History of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology, The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Themes in European History, and in various journals.

Dr. Lowe is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the recipient of numerous grants. His awards include College Researcher of the Year and the University Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. His expertise in both religious and English history has been called upon frequently by various media, and he has given many public lectures before academic, civic, religious, and cultural organizations.

Courses

Undergraduate Courses

• Historical Methods
• Tudor-Stuart England
• Renaissance Europe (1350-1500)
• Reformation Europe (1500-1650)
• Early Modern Europe (1650-1790)
• History of Christianity to 1500
• History of Christianity since 1500
• Rogues, Pirates and Outcasts in Early Modern England
• True Crime in Early Modern England
• History of European Sexuality
• History of Western Ideas
• The Tudors in History and Popular Culture

 

Graduate Courses

• Seminar in Tudor Political Thought
• Readings in Tudor-Stuart History
• The Mind of Europe (1300-1550)
• Readings in Renaissance and Reformation History
• Seminar on the Tudor-Stuart Commonwealth
• Readings in English Reformation History
• European Reformations: Ideas, Forms and Legacies
• The Political and Religious Thought of the English Civil War and Republic

Curriculum Vitae (Available upon request)