Preston Jones received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Ottawa (Canada) in 1999. He has received several awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship for study in Canada and a fellowship with the Pew Program in Religion and American History.

Professor Jones has published three scholarly books, two scholarly monographs and three books for general readers. He has also contributed over 200 articles to academic journals, magazines, newspapers, and websites. He reads in Spanish almost every day. He also reads the Bible in French and Welsh. He has taught first-year Latin.

For three years before coming to JBU, Professor Jones taught Advanced Placement courses in the social sciences at a private high school. At JBU he teaches general history courses, as well as a variety of classes that focus on different aspects of the modern world. His research interests focus on the U.S. Empire and American social history in the period 1870-1940. He is interested in modern empires generally, and he teaches a course on the British Empire.

Professor Jones is committed to introducing students to great texts that have stood the test of time. In recent years he has used in his general history classes the works of Aristotle, Sophocles, Sallust, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas, William Langland, Shakespeare, John Bunyan, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, J.S. Mill, Albert Camus and Reinhold Niebuhr, in addition to excerpts and shorter works from many others.

On several occasions Professor Jones has been a visiting lecturer in ethics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala (See interview). He has also led seminars on ethics for the Fundación Exodo and the Centro Esdras, both based in Guatemala. For several years, he has been involved in service projects in Guatemala City. (See photos below.)

Professor Jones served in the U.S. Navy from 1986 to 1990. Because of his interest in seeing the U.S. military end its involvement with the Southeast Asian brothel industry, Professor Jones served on the advisory board of ECPAT-USA, an international organization devoted to combating child prostitution. (See article below.)

Professor Jones has run eighteen marathons.