Graduate Colloquium: The American Revolution in History and Memory

This course, first offered as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, will focus on three themes. (Please note that while there will be some military history in our assignments, this course is not a military history of the war.) First, and most importantly, will be the state of the field, exploring how the top scholars of the Revolution view it as an ideological, social, political, cultural movement. Second, we will focus on how the Revolution has been remembered, which has changed over time and has often been contested. Both abolitionists and proslavery spokesmen claimed to be the true heirs and acolytes of the Revolution, to cite one example. And third, we will focus on how we can more effectively teach the American Revolution.