HIST 341-000: Era Of The American Revolution (Spring 2010)

Content:  How and why did a seemingly minor squabble over governance in the First British Empire lead, improbably, to the birth of the United States?  How did thirteen bickering and bustling colonies at the edge of empire manage to fight a bloody war of independence, embark on bold and uncertain forms of government, and develop a new science of politics?  What was the American Revolution, and what was revolutionary about it?  This class explores the origins, outcomes, and ironies of the American Revolution, and encourages students to develop a sophisticated understanding of why independence happened when it did, and what difference it made.  We will consider the American Revolution as an intellectual event, a social drama, and not least a creation myth that challenged age-old assumptions about authority and dared Americans of all kinds to think in new ways about their lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness. 

Possible Texts: Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Harvard University Press, 1992); Woody Holton, Forced Founders:  Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (University of North Carolina Press, 1999); Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple (Oxford University Press, 1986); Richard D. Brown, ed., Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791 (second edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1999); Gary B. Nash, Race and Revolution (Madison House, 1990); Joseph Plumb Martin, Private Yankee Doodle, George Scheer, ed. (Eastern Acorn Press, 1998); Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (Vintage, 1991). 

Grading:  Grades will be based on weekly response papers, participation in class discussions, and two take-home essay exams.