James Edward Bunce was an American historian, author, and educator who specialized in British and American colonial history.
Education
Born on August 18, 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, Bunce attended Saint John"s University (Bachelor, 1946), and then Fordham University in Bronx, New York, where he received the Master of Arts (1948), and Doctor of Philosophy (1958) in History His doctoral dissertation ("The Second Rockingham Administration, 1782") was prepared under Professor Ross J. South. Hoffman.
Career
He was a proponent of the "Imperial school" of historians who believed that one needed to study the American colonies as part of the larger British Empire. He also co-edited (along with Richard P Harmond) Long Island as America: A Documentary History to 1896 (Kennikat Press, 1977). In 1983, he authored a pamphlet, Suffolk County in 1683, for the Suffolk County Tercentenary Commission.
Politics
He contributed five articles on British history to Catholic Encyclopedia for School and Home (McGraw-Hill, 1965), and a chapter ("Rockingham, Shelburne, and the Politics of Reform, 1779-1780") in Gaetano L. Vincitorio (ed), Studies in Modern History (Street John"s University Press, 1968) Bunce co-edited a Festschrift for his mentor, Ross J. South. Hoffman - Crisis in the "Great Republic": Essays Presented to Ross J. South. Hoffman (Fordham University Press, 1969), to which he also contributed an essay on "The Whigs and the Invasion Crisis of 1779". He also contributed book reviews to the Catholic Historical Review.