Jonathan Barth

Jonathan Barth is assistant professor of history who specializes in the history of money and banking in the early modern period, with corollary interests in early modern politics, empire, culture, and ideas. His first book, The Currency of Empire: Money and Power in Seventeenth-Century English America (Cornell University Press, 2021), explores the intersection of money and imperial politics in the first hundred years of English Atlantic colonization, arguing that disputes over access to hard money prompted much of the conflict and rivalry in the imperial-colonial relationship in this period.

Prior to joining the faculty at Arizona State University, Barth received his B.A. in secondary education, history at Appalachian State University (2005); his M.A. in history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2009); and a doctorate in history at George Mason University (2014).

Barth is also associate lead of the Political History and Leadership Program in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.