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American Revolution



  • Can America Handle a 250th Anniversary?

    John Dichtl of the American Association for State and Local History says that Americans want "more help navigating these times, which are probably only going to get worse,” portending brutal battles over the upcoming commemoration. 



  • George Washington in Barbados?

    by Erica Johnson Edwards

    The local monuments to George Washington's 1751 visit to Barbados demonstrate the interconnectedness of American and Caribbean histories as well as the influence of Caribbean practices of enslavement on the institution in the United States. 



  • Edward Larson Speaks to the New History Wars

    by Jon Meacham

    "To me, Larson’s unemotional account of the Republic’s beginnings confirms a tragic truth: that influential white Americans knew — and understood — that slavery was wrong and liberty was precious, but chose not to act according to that knowledge and that understanding."



  • Woody Holton Still Fighting the American Revolution

    "I knew history buffs would want a narrative, and I was happy to provide one, since one of my main points is that women’s, Indigenous, military, and all the other histories transpired on the same timeline, constantly influencing each other."



  • Were the Founders a Bunch of Wealthy Oligarchs?

    by Willard Sterne Randall

    Charles Beard's progressive-era analysis of the founding portrayed the Founders as men of wealth pursuing their own interests; we know the reality was more complicated. 


  • The Revolution Whisperer

    by Greg Shaw

    The author hoped to write a biography of William Small, the Scottish polymath whose mentorship linked the political revolution of Thomas Jefferson and the industrial one of James Watt. Learning that another researcher had beaten him to the punch didn't diminish the author's admiration for the story in the least. 



  • H.W. Brands on America's First Civil War and the Memory of the Revolution

    "Rebellion and revolution are a rejection of the status quo, and the people who reject the status quo are usually people for whom the status quo isn’t working. In the case of Washington and Franklin, however, they couldn’t have asked for more from the status quo, so what caused them to do this?"



  • The Storm over the American Revolution

    by Eric Herschthal

    By shoehorning his recent book on the Revolutionary War into the space of the debate about slavery and the founding, critics of Woody Holton are missing important points about the importance of indigenous land to the founding and the global context of colonial independence.



  • Enslaved Women as American Revolutionaries: Karen Cook-Bell

    "Instead of viewing Black women as at the margins of the American Revolution and abolitionism, it is important to see them as visible participants and self-determined figures who put their lives on the line for freedom."