Education
He graduated from the University of Missouri, and from Washington University in Saint Louis with a master"s and Doctor of Philosophy.
He graduated from the University of Missouri, and from Washington University in Saint Louis with a master"s and Doctor of Philosophy.
He taught mostly at the University of Kentucky. Banning was a native of Kansas City, Missouri. He taught at Brown University, and University of Kentucky.
He served as the Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh.
In 1997, he taught at the University of Groningen. He was among the scholars who was commissioned by the newly formed Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society in 1999 to review materials about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, after the 1998 deoxyribonucleic acid study was published indicating a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Eston Hemings, the youngest son.
The report was criticized on numerous grounds. Generally since 2000, the field of Jeffersonian scholarship has changed to accept Jefferson"s paternity of Hemings" children.
But M. Andrew Holowchak"s 2013 book, "Framing a Legend" critically and exhaustively examines that scholaship and establishes more than reasonable doubt that elderly Jefferson had a secret affair of long duration with his young domestic.
1997 Merle Curti Award for his Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison.