Dr. Chris Magra is a Professor of Early American History at the University of Tennessee and the Director of the Center for the Study of Tennesseans and War. His research focuses on the maritime dimensions of the American Revolution, slavery, the trans-Appalachian South, and the history of food and agriculture in the Atlantic World. He is an award-winning teacher, and he is committed to public history and community engagement.

Selected Publications

Books

• Unfree Food: The Carceral Production of Chocolate In Early America (In Progress).
• Editor, America’s First War: The Military History of the Declaration of Independence (University of Tennessee Press, 2026).
• Poseidon’s Curse: British Naval Impressment and Atlantic Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
• The Fisherman’s Cause: Atlantic Commerce and Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2009) — Winner of the 2010 Winslow House Book Prize.

Recent Articles & Chapters

• “For The Common Defense: Settler Security and Statehood in the Revolutionary Southwest, 1763-1796,” The Journal of East Tennessee History (forthcoming).
• “Blount’s Bunko: The Southwest Territory, 1790-1796,” in A Republic of Scoundrels (Pegasus Books, 2023).
• “The ‘Negro Chocolate Grinders’ of Newport: Accounting for Slave Life in Eighteenth-Century Rhode Island,” Newport History (2021).

Courses Taught

• Undergraduate: American History Survey (Part I), Colonial America (1600-1763), Revolutionary America (1763-1800), Piracy in the Atlantic World.
• Graduate: Capitalism and Slavery, Ocean-Centered History, History From Below, Readings in Early America, Research in Early America

Awards & Honors

• UTK College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Service Award (2025).
• David and Kathryn White Teaching Award (2018).