The American Revolution

Catalog description

How and why did thirteen small colonies break away from one of the world’s most powerful empires, and what kind of nation did they build in the process? This course introduces students to the history of the American Revolution, from the Seven Years’ War through the ratification of the Constitution. We will explore how imperial conflict, political ideas, economic change, warfare, and social upheaval combined to transform thirteen British colonies into an independent United States. We will pay particular attention to the diverse experiences of revolution: not only those of famous leaders, but also of ordinary men and women, Indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, and Loyalists. Students will consider the Revolution as both a struggle for independence and a civil war; as a story of democratic promise and profound exclusion; and as part of a wider age of revolutions that reshaped the Atlantic world. As the 250th anniversary of American independence approaches, the course also invites students to reflect on how Americans and others have remembered, commemorated, and contested the Revolution across four centuries.