Week 1

Week 1: Friday, October 9, 2020
The Imperial Crisis

With the possible exception of the Civil War, no period in American history has received more attention than that of the country's founding. Not only was the American Revolution a struggle for power and an event of world-historical significance, it was also, in many respects, an attempt to realize the ideals of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Abraham Lincoln was by far the outstanding figure in the "team of rivals" that became his wartime cabinet, but the makers of the Revolution were by comparison an all-star team. Merely to list the outstanding names -- Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Paine -- is to recognize that this was the most talented generation in American political history. In a world in which monarchy still linked most people upwardly and downwardly in gradations of subordination and servility, they proclaimed the principles of liberty and equality.

How did the intellectual inheritance of the Founders combine with social conditions in the colonies to cast off centuries-old social patterns in favor of what was then the most radical political experiment in the world, replacing deference to status with an insistence on rights? And how did the Americans manage to defeat the mightiest empire of that era in the Revolutionary War? Our course combines the findings of recent scholarship on the military, political, and social history of the Revolution with close reading of works by the Revolution's greatest figures. Each lecture will pair a chronological and thematic survey of major events in the Revolution with a reconsideration of one of the Founders (some of whom will be considered from multiple perspectives over several weeks).

The Imperial Crisis/Benjamin Franklin
The revolution from Franklin's unique perspective.
The Seven Years' War - the first global war, and the origins of the revolution.

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

2

Week 2: Friday, October 16, 2020
The Enlightenment and the Revolution

The ideological origins of the American Revolution
The British Enlightenment
The French Enlightenment
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and "natural rights."
The British legal tradition: Magna Carta and all.

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

RECOMMENDED READING

Bernard Bailyn,

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press,

ISBN 0674975650

The book listed above is one of the most influential books ever written about the Revolutionary period. It was first published by Harvard University Press in 1968. It was written by Bernard Bailyn who was an American historian, author, and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1953. Bailyn won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice. Professor Bailyn just passed away this summer at the age of 97, and at his passing he was recognized as one of the very greatest of all the historians of the Revolution. This book brought together the ideas of the Revolutionaries in a way that made it a whole new topic of study in the field.

Walter Isaacson,

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life,

Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition (July 1, 2003),

ISBN 0684807610

Review From Publishers Weekly
"Most people's mental image of Ben Franklin is that of an aged man with wire-rim glasses and a comb-over, flying a kite in a thunder storm, or of the spirited face that stares back from a one-hundred-dollar bill. Isaacson's (Kissinger) biography does much to remind us of Franklin's amazing depth and breadth. At once a scientist, craftsman, writer, publisher, comic, sage, ladies' man, statesman, diplomat and inventor, Franklin not only wore many hats, but in many cases, did not have an equal. The most intriguing thing he invented, and continued to reinvent, according to Isaacson, was himself. Three-time Tony winner Gaines has an obvious interest and affinity for the material. His delivery of Isaacson's factual yet fascinating biography is informative and friendly with an instructional yet casual tone, like that of a gregarious narrator of an educational film. All things considered, Gaines is a good match for the material. He has the authority to deliver historical facts and the enthusiasm to keep listeners interested."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

3

Week 3: Friday, October 23, 2020
The Continental Congress

The Continental Congress: John Adams

In our first lecture we looked at Boston as the scene of the triggering incidents that led, step by step, from incidents of friction between British soldiers and American civilians, to all-out conflict between the British army and Massachusetts militias. We also emphasized the distinctive political culture of New England, one strand of which, the Puritan, goes all the way back to 1630. But if the revolution had been restricted to New England it would have fizzled. It had to enlist the support of Patriots in all of the thirteen colonies, and to fuse them into a single Continental Army, which could draw on support, financial and military, from Britain's enemies in Europe. But the other colonies had their own distinctive cultures. In this lecture, we'll examine them, and then we'll turn to the problem of fusing these diverse cultures together on a "continental" scale.

More than any of the other revolutionaries Adams represented the political and constitutional side of the American Enlightenment: Thoughts on Government, 1776, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. His basic conviction: government bore an intimate relation to society, and no society, not even the U.S., could be truly egalitarian, and he attempted to come to terms with this fact as no other revolutionary did. History had taught that "Public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics." Americans possessed as much public spirit as any people in the world. Nevertheless, he had seen all through his life "such Selfishness and Littleness even in New England" that the cause seemed imperiled. The Revolution had unleashed a flood of passions: "Hope, Fear, Joy, Sorrow, Love, Hatred, Malice, Envy, Revenge, Jealousy, Ambition, Avarice, Resentment, Gratitude," creating a whirlwind up and down the Continent. There was, he told Mercy Warren in 1776 "so much Rascality, so much Venality and Corruption, so much Avarice and Ambition, such a rage for Profit and Commerce among all Ranks and Degrees of Men" that republicanism seemed a precarious experiment. Within a few years it was clear that there was "no special providence for Americans, and their nature is the same as that of the others." Americans, Adams now believed, were as driven by the passions for wealth and precedence as any people in history. Ambition, avarice, and resentment, not virtue and benevolence, were the stuff of American society. Those who argued that Americans were especially egalitarian were blind to reality. Every people, he contended, possessed inequalities "which no human legislator can eradicate."

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

RECOMMENDED READING

David McCullough,

John Adams,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 0684813637

Here is the best biography of John Adams that can possibly be imagined. In addition it brought forth the magnificent HBO video saga version that you should watch while you are studying all of this with Prof. Thompson. Paul Giamatti's John Adams is his greatest performance.

Review From Publishers Weekly
Here a preeminent master of narrative history takes on the most fascinating of our founders to create a benchmark for all Adams biographers. With a keen eye for telling detail and a master storyteller's instinct for human interest, McCullough (Truman; Mornings on Horseback) resurrects the great Federalist (1735-1826), revealing in particular his restrained, sometimes off-putting disposition, as well as his political guile. The events McCullough recounts are well-known, but with his astute marshaling of facts, the author surpasses previous biographers in depicting Adams's years at Harvard, his early public life in Boston and his role in the first Continental Congress, where he helped shape the philosophical basis for the Revolution. McCullough also makes vivid Adams's actions in the second Congress, during which he was the first to propose George Washington to command the new Continental Army. Later on, we see Adams bickering with Tom Paine's plan for government as suggested in Common Sense, helping push through the draft for the Declaration of Independence penned by his longtime friend and frequent rival, Thomas Jefferson, and serving as commissioner to France and envoy to the Court of St. James's. The author is likewise brilliant in portraying Adams's complex relationship with Jefferson, who ousted him from the White House in 1800 and with whom he would share a remarkable death date 26 years later: July 4, 1826, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration. (June) Forecast: Joseph Ellis has shown us the Founding Fathers can be bestsellers, and S&S knows it has a winner: first printing is 350,000 copies, and McCullough will go on a 15-city tour; both Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club have taken this book as a selection.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

4

Week 4: Friday, October 30, 2020
Declaring Independence: Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson

Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson

Revolutions often generate what we now call manifestos, or perhaps we might put it the other way around: manifestos sometimes help to generate revolutions. That is certainly the case with the American revolution. (A manifesto is "a public declaration of policy or aim, published at the beginning of a political movement or campaign.") This evening we will consider two of the most famous manifestos in history, both published in the same year, each of them expressing, from different points of view, the principles and values of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment: Tom Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776, and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, signed, as everyone knows, on July 4 of that year. More generally, we'll reexamine the role of ideas and "ideology" in the genesis of the American Revolution.

Common Sense, (Jan 1776) was a 77-page pamphlet that sold 500,000 copies, one for every four colonists—the all time bestseller until Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. By April, John Adams wrote that there was nothing to be heard in America but "Common Sense and Independence." On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia rose to offer an independence resolution to the Continental Congress. A Committee composed of Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson was created to write a preface, or a Declaration, to the resolution. Paine established the ideological structure that rebels would use 6 months later in Philadelphia. He had failed at corset-making, school-teaching, tax collecting, so he sailed for America in 1774, armed with a letter of recommendation from Ben Franklin. He was hired as the editor of the struggling Pennsylvania Magazine and soon boosted circulation by denouncing slavery and all proposals for compromise with England. Paine had landed in the most important city in North America. He was different from Franklin and the other founders. His appearance was slovenly, with a large nose reddened by too much drink. He was never fully accepted as a gentleman. "He seemed to be someone floating loose in a hierarchical world, coming out of nowhere and tied to no one, a man without a home and even without a country."(Wood)
 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

5

Week 5: Friday, November 6, 2020
Boston to New York: George Washington

During the late summer and fall of 1776, George Washington's Continental Army suffered one defeat after another in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Westchester. As John Adams unkindly observed, "In general, our Generals were out-generaled." What went wrong? How did Washington lose New York and nearly lose his army during the first full year of the war? And what lessons did he learn from these comprehensive and humiliating defeats?

Edmund Morgan: "We remember Washington as a commanding presence, massively dignified, preoccupied with his awesome responsibilities, not given to small talk, with agreeable manners but formal in his graciousness, not someone you would feel quite comfortable to spend an evening with at home. Nor, you sense, would he have felt quite comfortable with you. Franklin, on the other hand, we picture as a bit casual in appearance, easygoing, always ready with a joke, clubbable, someone you would feel comfortable with, making small talk and serious talk as well, over a convivial bottle or punch bowl…. Franklin could afford to dress negligently (how the French doted on his 'Quaker' garb and coonskin cap) and keep in the background. Washington had to remain in the foreground and had to look the part of a born commander. His uniforms were gorgeous, and he was always splendidly mounted….

"For both men independence came to mean a demonstration that a people could govern itself without submission to a king, a demonstration that republican government could prosper in a world that scorned it. Hitherto republics had been thought suitable only for small countries, not worth the trouble of annexation by a monarchy, but ineffectual in government because the people could never agree on anything important, least of all on waging war…. But for Washington and Franklin, as for many other leaders of the Revolution, the people who joined in declaring independence were one people. They were creating something new in the world: a great republic a republic on a continental scale. Washington led an American army, a continental army. He took his orders from a Continental Congress. While Washington remained a Virginian and Franklin a Pennsylvanian, both were first of all Americans, engaged in establishing an American republic. In a phrase later used by Alexander Hamilton, both men 'thought continentally.'"

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

RECOMMENDED READING

David McCullough,

1776,

Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition (May 24, 2005),

ISBN 0743226712

1776 is a book written by David McCullough, published by Simon & Schuster on May 24, 2005. The work is a companion to McCullough's earlier biography of John Adams, and focuses on the events surrounding the start of the American Revolutionary War. While revolving mostly around the leadership (and often indecisiveness) of George Washington, there is also considerable attention given to King George III, William Howe, Henry Knox, and Nathanael Greene. Key Revolutionary War battles detailed in the book include the Battle of Dorchester Heights, the Battle of Long Island, and the Battle of Trenton. The activities of the Second Continental Congress and the signing of the Declaration of Independence are treated in less detail, as the focus is on military rather than political events. The book includes multiple pages of full color illustrations, including portraits and historical battlefield maps made by British engineers at the time.

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

6

Week 6: Friday, November 13, 2020
Washington's Crossing

How good a general was George Washington? As Thomas Fleming observes, "If we consult the statistics as they might have been kept if he had been a boxer or a quarterback, the figures are not encouraging. In seven years of fighting the British, from 1775 to 1782, he won only three clear-cut victories—at Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown. In seven other encounters—Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, Fort Washington, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth—he either was defeated or at best could claim a draw. He never won a major battle. Trenton was essentially a raid, Princeton was little more than a large skirmish, and Yorktown was a siege in which the blockading French fleet was an essential component of the victory." And yet Trenton and Princeton restored morale at the end of a disastrous year, and thereby saved the army and the Revolution? How did Washington do it?

Washington's Crossing is the location of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776 in the American Revolutionary War. This daring maneuver led to victory in the Battle of Trenton and altered the course of the war. The site, a National Historic Landmark, is composed of state parks in Washington Crossing, New Jersey, and Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, north of Trenton, New Jersey. The Washington's Crossing site is located north of Yardley, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey. The main commemorative sites are located north of the Washington Crossing Bridge spanning the river.

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

7

Week 7: Friday, November 20, 2020
The French Connection

NO CLASS NEXT WEEK THANKSGIVING BREAK

During 1777, the Americans had a chicken-and-egg problem with the French. They needed a big victory over the British to secure French support, but they needed French support in order to score a big victory over the British. They got it, in the form of clandestine infusions of money and guns from the French, crucial for the victory at Saratoga in October. After the winter supply crisis at Valley Forge had passed, other problems remained. Upwards of 300 officers departed from Valley Forge, some in anger, frustration, or despair, others implored to come home by their spouses. Discontent with Washington's leadership of the army was fueled by Washington's failures at Brandywine and Germantown, followed by his inability to resist Howe's final drive into Philadelphia, and the misery of Valley Forge. To the rescue came Benjamin Franklin, America's chief emissary in France, who negotiated the alliance that kept the Americans in the war and spelled Britain's ultimate defeat in a war of attrition. How did Franklin do it?

The most important book by an Englishman watching the French Revolution comes from the pen of Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke,

Reflections on the Revolution in France,

Oxford University Press; Reissue edition (June 15, 2009),

ISBN 0199539022

 

Alexis de Tocqueville ,

The Old Regime and the French Revolution,

Anchor; First Thus edition (October 1, 1955),

ISBN 0385092601

About the Author:

From Wikipedia: Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (born July 29, 1805, Paris, died April 16, 1859, Cannes) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution(1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies. Democracy in America (1835), his major work, published after his travels in the United States, is today considered an early work of sociology and political science. An eminent representative of the classical liberal political tradition, Tocqueville was an active participant in French politics, first under the July monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup, and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume I.

Amazon Reviews:

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) wrote many books, but his best-known one is probably "Democracy in America". Despite that, reading "The Old Regime and the Revolution" (1856) is essential in order to understand how much Tocqueville contributed to an accurate analysis of the present and past of his society, and to Political Science.

Why is "The Old Regime and the Revolution" a classic?. Why do teachers keep recommending it to their students?. In my opinion, the answer to both those questions is that this book is an example of the kind of work a political scientist is capable of producing, if inclined to do so. Here, Tocqueville doesn't pay attention to the conventionally accepted truth, but looks beyond it, in order to form his own opinion. And when the result of that process is shocking, he doesn't back down bounded by conventions: he simply states his conclusions.

In "The Old Regime and the Revolution" Alexis de Tocqueville does what at his time was considered more or less unthinkable: to put into question the revolutionary character of...the French Revolution. He said that the only way to understand what happened in 1789 was to study the previous social processes, and to find what they have in com Thurs. with what came about later. This change of perspective was radical, but effective. It didn't presuppose anything, and so it helped the author to arrive to a seemingly strange conclusion: that the French Revolution had not only continued with the social processes that were taking place in France, but accentuated them. For example, the governmental centralization was much worse after 1789. In a way, then, the French Revolution only carried forward with what the Old Regime had already started.

On the whole, I recommend this book mainly to those interested in French History and Political Science. It isn't overly easy to read, but you will realize that it is full of interesting information, and permeated by a painstakingly careful analysis regarding social processes that is remarkable. In my opinion, "The Old Regime and the Revolution" is a book that you won't regret buying :)

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

8

Week 8: Friday, December 4, 2020
American Genius: Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

Why Hamilton? How is it that of all the founders, he's the one whose life story has become the subject of a hit Broadway musical? Indeed, perhaps the biggest hit in Broadway history. Why Hamilton, and not Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison? After all, each of those men became president, whereas Hamilton never did. The last time he was on Broadway, in 1804, Hamilton was in a coffin, on the way to his burial in the graveyard of Trinity Church, at Broadway and 12th. He hadn't managed to reach the age of fifty. But in an age of geniuses, he was one of the greatest. During the Revolution, Hamilton, while still in his early twenties, Hamilton became George Washington’s chief aide and played a heroic role in several battles, including the one that forced the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. Like the commander-in-chief, Hamilton thought "continentally," and he was so good at reading Washington's mind that the general trusted him to manage his correspondence and even to write his orders. And that was just the beginning of Hamilton's brilliant career.

American historian Gordon Wood commenting on Alexander Hamilton at the opening of the "Hamilton" musical on Broadway in New York Review of Books, January 14, 2016: "Although Alexander Hamilton never became president of the United States, he is more famous than most presidents . . . because of the hit Broadway show Hamilton. Indeed, the response to this musical has been phenomenal: it is sold out for months. Both the left and the right like this play; President Obama, who took his daughters to see it, said that he was “pretty sure this is the only thing that Dick Cheney and I have agreed on—during my entire political career.” It’s patriotic without being self-righteous or stuffy. So excited have people become with this musical treatment of the rise and fall of our first secretary of the treasury that the Rockefeller Foundation and the producers have agreed to finance a program to bring 20,000 New York City eleventh-graders to see Hamilton at a series of matinees beginning next spring and running through 2017. Using a curriculum put together by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, they plan on drawing the students largely from schools that have a high percentage of low-income families. No one thought of doing this for Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables, or even 1776, which dealt with America’s writing of the Declaration of Independence. This show is different. Not only is it sung in the stylized rhythmic and rhyming manner of rap and hip-hop, but perhaps more important, the cast is deliberately composed almost entirely of African-Americans and Latinos. This symbolizes as nothing else could that the history of the founding of the United States belongs to all Americans at all times and in all places and not simply to elite white Anglo-Saxon males who lived in the eighteenth century. Since we Americans have no common race or ethnicity, the main things that hold us together and make us a nation are the ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy that came out of the Revolution, the most important event in American history, in which Hamilton was a major participant. Americans have been desperate to attach all immigrants and all minorities to the history and meaning of the US, and this play helps to do that. It is no wonder that it has been so passionately and universally celebrated."

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

9

Week 9: Friday, December 11, 2020
Loyalists, Traitors, and Spies

Thomas Hutchinson, the loyalist governor of Massachusetts, tried his best to prevent the Revolution from occurring by strangling the Patriot cause in its cradle. His reputation has been rehabilitated by one of our greatest historians of the colonial era, Bernard Bailyn. Benedict Arnold's reputation, alas, is beyond any hope of rehabilitation: he was a turncoat rather than a loyalist, i.e., a traitor. He had been a hero of the battle of Saratoga, so why did he betray the glorious cause? Money, love, insufficient recognition of his achievements? We'll try to understand the man behind a name that has become synonymous with treason in American history. And finally, one more type, the opposite of Arnold: the spy, Abraham Woodhull, of Setauket, Long Island. He took enormous risks anonymously, without any thought of gain beyond getting his expenses paid. And he did so because he hated the British and had been converted to the Patriot cause, from which he never wavered. He and his comrades in the Culper spy ring did what Arnold failed to do: they helped to determine the outcome of the war.

Thomas Hutchinson (9 September 1711 – 3 June 1780) was a businessman, historian, and a prominent Loyalist politician of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the years before the American Revolution. He has been referred to as "the most important figure on the loyalist side in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts". He was a successful merchant and politician, and was active at high levels of the Massachusetts government for many years, serving as lieutenant governor and then governor from 1758 to 1774. He was a politically polarizing figure who came to be identified by John Adams and Samuel Adams as a proponent of hated British taxes, despite his initial opposition to Parliamentary tax laws directed at the colonies. He was blamed by Lord North (the British Prime Minister at the time) for being a significant contributor to the tensions that led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Hutchinson's Boston mansion was ransacked in 1765 during protests against the Stamp Act, damaging his collection of materials on early Massachusetts history. As acting governor in 1770, he exposed himself to mob attack in the aftermath of the Boston massacre, after which he ordered the removal of troops from Boston to Castle William. Letters of his calling for abridgement of colonial rights were published in 1773, further intensifying dislike of him in the colony. He was replaced as governor in May 1774 by General Thomas Gage, and went into exile in England, where he advised the government on how to deal with the colonists. Hutchinson had a deep interest in colonial history, collecting many historical documents. He wrote a three-volume History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay whose last volume, published posthumously, covered his own period in office. Historian Bernard Bailyn wrote of Hutchinson, "If there was one person in America whose actions might have altered the outcome [of the protests and disputes preceding the American Revolutionary War], it was he." Scholars use Hutchinson's career to represent the tragic fate of the many Loyalists marginalized by their attachment to an outmoded imperial structure at a time when the modern nation-state was emerging. Hutchinson exemplifies the difficulties experienced by Loyalists, paralyzed by his ideology and his dual loyalties to America and Britain. He sacrificed his love for Massachusetts to his loyalty to Great Britain, where he spent his last years in unhappy exile.

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

10

Week 10: Friday, December 18, 2020
Sister Revolutions

In our final lecture, we'll examine the last years of the war, culminating in the British defeat at Yorktown. How and why did Britain's General Charles Cornwallis manage to get his army bottled up there? How did the Americans and the French combine their forces to compel his surrender? And finally, we'll attempt to place the American Revolution in historical perspective by comparing it with its sequel, the French Revolution, which not only emerged out of the financial crisis caused by French support for the American Revolution but was also inspired by the American example. Why did the French Revolution culminate in the dictatorship of Napoleon, whereas the American Revolution issued in the reluctant presidency of George Washington? We'll highlight the career of the Marquis de Lafayette, a brilliant success in the American Revolution, but a failure in the French Revolution, from which he was fortunate to escape with his head still attached to his body!

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

All

Week 1: Fri., Oct. 9, 2020
The Imperial Crisis

With the possible exception of the Civil War, no period in American history has received more attention than that of the country's founding. Not only was the American Revolution a struggle for power and an event of world-historical significance, it was also, in many respects, an attempt to realize the ideals of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Abraham Lincoln was by far the outstanding figure in the "team of rivals" that became his wartime cabinet, but the makers of the Revolution were by comparison an all-star team. Merely to list the outstanding names -- Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Madison, Paine -- is to recognize that this was the most talented generation in American political history. In a world in which monarchy still linked most people upwardly and downwardly in gradations of subordination and servility, they proclaimed the principles of liberty and equality.

How did the intellectual inheritance of the Founders combine with social conditions in the colonies to cast off centuries-old social patterns in favor of what was then the most radical political experiment in the world, replacing deference to status with an insistence on rights? And how did the Americans manage to defeat the mightiest empire of that era in the Revolutionary War? Our course combines the findings of recent scholarship on the military, political, and social history of the Revolution with close reading of works by the Revolution's greatest figures. Each lecture will pair a chronological and thematic survey of major events in the Revolution with a reconsideration of one of the Founders (some of whom will be considered from multiple perspectives over several weeks).

The Imperial Crisis/Benjamin Franklin
The revolution from Franklin's unique perspective.
The Seven Years' War - the first global war, and the origins of the revolution.

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

Week 2: Fri., Oct. 16, 2020
The Enlightenment and the Revolution

The ideological origins of the American Revolution
The British Enlightenment
The French Enlightenment
Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and "natural rights."
The British legal tradition: Magna Carta and all.

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

RECOMMENDED READING

Bernard Bailyn,

The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press,

ISBN 0674975650

The book listed above is one of the most influential books ever written about the Revolutionary period. It was first published by Harvard University Press in 1968. It was written by Bernard Bailyn who was an American historian, author, and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era History. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1953. Bailyn won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice. Professor Bailyn just passed away this summer at the age of 97, and at his passing he was recognized as one of the very greatest of all the historians of the Revolution. This book brought together the ideas of the Revolutionaries in a way that made it a whole new topic of study in the field.

Walter Isaacson,

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life,

Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition (July 1, 2003),

ISBN 0684807610

Review From Publishers Weekly
"Most people's mental image of Ben Franklin is that of an aged man with wire-rim glasses and a comb-over, flying a kite in a thunder storm, or of the spirited face that stares back from a one-hundred-dollar bill. Isaacson's (Kissinger) biography does much to remind us of Franklin's amazing depth and breadth. At once a scientist, craftsman, writer, publisher, comic, sage, ladies' man, statesman, diplomat and inventor, Franklin not only wore many hats, but in many cases, did not have an equal. The most intriguing thing he invented, and continued to reinvent, according to Isaacson, was himself. Three-time Tony winner Gaines has an obvious interest and affinity for the material. His delivery of Isaacson's factual yet fascinating biography is informative and friendly with an instructional yet casual tone, like that of a gregarious narrator of an educational film. All things considered, Gaines is a good match for the material. He has the authority to deliver historical facts and the enthusiasm to keep listeners interested."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

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Week 3: Fri., Oct. 23, 2020
The Continental Congress

The Continental Congress: John Adams

In our first lecture we looked at Boston as the scene of the triggering incidents that led, step by step, from incidents of friction between British soldiers and American civilians, to all-out conflict between the British army and Massachusetts militias. We also emphasized the distinctive political culture of New England, one strand of which, the Puritan, goes all the way back to 1630. But if the revolution had been restricted to New England it would have fizzled. It had to enlist the support of Patriots in all of the thirteen colonies, and to fuse them into a single Continental Army, which could draw on support, financial and military, from Britain's enemies in Europe. But the other colonies had their own distinctive cultures. In this lecture, we'll examine them, and then we'll turn to the problem of fusing these diverse cultures together on a "continental" scale.

More than any of the other revolutionaries Adams represented the political and constitutional side of the American Enlightenment: Thoughts on Government, 1776, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. His basic conviction: government bore an intimate relation to society, and no society, not even the U.S., could be truly egalitarian, and he attempted to come to terms with this fact as no other revolutionary did. History had taught that "Public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics." Americans possessed as much public spirit as any people in the world. Nevertheless, he had seen all through his life "such Selfishness and Littleness even in New England" that the cause seemed imperiled. The Revolution had unleashed a flood of passions: "Hope, Fear, Joy, Sorrow, Love, Hatred, Malice, Envy, Revenge, Jealousy, Ambition, Avarice, Resentment, Gratitude," creating a whirlwind up and down the Continent. There was, he told Mercy Warren in 1776 "so much Rascality, so much Venality and Corruption, so much Avarice and Ambition, such a rage for Profit and Commerce among all Ranks and Degrees of Men" that republicanism seemed a precarious experiment. Within a few years it was clear that there was "no special providence for Americans, and their nature is the same as that of the others." Americans, Adams now believed, were as driven by the passions for wealth and precedence as any people in history. Ambition, avarice, and resentment, not virtue and benevolence, were the stuff of American society. Those who argued that Americans were especially egalitarian were blind to reality. Every people, he contended, possessed inequalities "which no human legislator can eradicate."

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

RECOMMENDED READING

David McCullough,

John Adams,

Simon & Schuster,

ISBN 0684813637

Here is the best biography of John Adams that can possibly be imagined. In addition it brought forth the magnificent HBO video saga version that you should watch while you are studying all of this with Prof. Thompson. Paul Giamatti's John Adams is his greatest performance.

Review From Publishers Weekly
Here a preeminent master of narrative history takes on the most fascinating of our founders to create a benchmark for all Adams biographers. With a keen eye for telling detail and a master storyteller's instinct for human interest, McCullough (Truman; Mornings on Horseback) resurrects the great Federalist (1735-1826), revealing in particular his restrained, sometimes off-putting disposition, as well as his political guile. The events McCullough recounts are well-known, but with his astute marshaling of facts, the author surpasses previous biographers in depicting Adams's years at Harvard, his early public life in Boston and his role in the first Continental Congress, where he helped shape the philosophical basis for the Revolution. McCullough also makes vivid Adams's actions in the second Congress, during which he was the first to propose George Washington to command the new Continental Army. Later on, we see Adams bickering with Tom Paine's plan for government as suggested in Common Sense, helping push through the draft for the Declaration of Independence penned by his longtime friend and frequent rival, Thomas Jefferson, and serving as commissioner to France and envoy to the Court of St. James's. The author is likewise brilliant in portraying Adams's complex relationship with Jefferson, who ousted him from the White House in 1800 and with whom he would share a remarkable death date 26 years later: July 4, 1826, 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration. (June) Forecast: Joseph Ellis has shown us the Founding Fathers can be bestsellers, and S&S knows it has a winner: first printing is 350,000 copies, and McCullough will go on a 15-city tour; both Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club have taken this book as a selection.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Week 4: Fri., Oct. 30, 2020
Declaring Independence: Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson

Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson

Revolutions often generate what we now call manifestos, or perhaps we might put it the other way around: manifestos sometimes help to generate revolutions. That is certainly the case with the American revolution. (A manifesto is "a public declaration of policy or aim, published at the beginning of a political movement or campaign.") This evening we will consider two of the most famous manifestos in history, both published in the same year, each of them expressing, from different points of view, the principles and values of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment: Tom Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776, and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, signed, as everyone knows, on July 4 of that year. More generally, we'll reexamine the role of ideas and "ideology" in the genesis of the American Revolution.

Common Sense, (Jan 1776) was a 77-page pamphlet that sold 500,000 copies, one for every four colonists—the all time bestseller until Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852. By April, John Adams wrote that there was nothing to be heard in America but "Common Sense and Independence." On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia rose to offer an independence resolution to the Continental Congress. A Committee composed of Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson was created to write a preface, or a Declaration, to the resolution. Paine established the ideological structure that rebels would use 6 months later in Philadelphia. He had failed at corset-making, school-teaching, tax collecting, so he sailed for America in 1774, armed with a letter of recommendation from Ben Franklin. He was hired as the editor of the struggling Pennsylvania Magazine and soon boosted circulation by denouncing slavery and all proposals for compromise with England. Paine had landed in the most important city in North America. He was different from Franklin and the other founders. His appearance was slovenly, with a large nose reddened by too much drink. He was never fully accepted as a gentleman. "He seemed to be someone floating loose in a hierarchical world, coming out of nowhere and tied to no one, a man without a home and even without a country."(Wood)
 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

Week 5: Fri., Nov. 6, 2020
Boston to New York: George Washington

During the late summer and fall of 1776, George Washington's Continental Army suffered one defeat after another in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Westchester. As John Adams unkindly observed, "In general, our Generals were out-generaled." What went wrong? How did Washington lose New York and nearly lose his army during the first full year of the war? And what lessons did he learn from these comprehensive and humiliating defeats?

Edmund Morgan: "We remember Washington as a commanding presence, massively dignified, preoccupied with his awesome responsibilities, not given to small talk, with agreeable manners but formal in his graciousness, not someone you would feel quite comfortable to spend an evening with at home. Nor, you sense, would he have felt quite comfortable with you. Franklin, on the other hand, we picture as a bit casual in appearance, easygoing, always ready with a joke, clubbable, someone you would feel comfortable with, making small talk and serious talk as well, over a convivial bottle or punch bowl…. Franklin could afford to dress negligently (how the French doted on his 'Quaker' garb and coonskin cap) and keep in the background. Washington had to remain in the foreground and had to look the part of a born commander. His uniforms were gorgeous, and he was always splendidly mounted….

"For both men independence came to mean a demonstration that a people could govern itself without submission to a king, a demonstration that republican government could prosper in a world that scorned it. Hitherto republics had been thought suitable only for small countries, not worth the trouble of annexation by a monarchy, but ineffectual in government because the people could never agree on anything important, least of all on waging war…. But for Washington and Franklin, as for many other leaders of the Revolution, the people who joined in declaring independence were one people. They were creating something new in the world: a great republic a republic on a continental scale. Washington led an American army, a continental army. He took his orders from a Continental Congress. While Washington remained a Virginian and Franklin a Pennsylvanian, both were first of all Americans, engaged in establishing an American republic. In a phrase later used by Alexander Hamilton, both men 'thought continentally.'"

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

RECOMMENDED READING

David McCullough,

1776,

Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition (May 24, 2005),

ISBN 0743226712

1776 is a book written by David McCullough, published by Simon & Schuster on May 24, 2005. The work is a companion to McCullough's earlier biography of John Adams, and focuses on the events surrounding the start of the American Revolutionary War. While revolving mostly around the leadership (and often indecisiveness) of George Washington, there is also considerable attention given to King George III, William Howe, Henry Knox, and Nathanael Greene. Key Revolutionary War battles detailed in the book include the Battle of Dorchester Heights, the Battle of Long Island, and the Battle of Trenton. The activities of the Second Continental Congress and the signing of the Declaration of Independence are treated in less detail, as the focus is on military rather than political events. The book includes multiple pages of full color illustrations, including portraits and historical battlefield maps made by British engineers at the time.

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Week 6: Fri., Nov. 13, 2020
Washington's Crossing

How good a general was George Washington? As Thomas Fleming observes, "If we consult the statistics as they might have been kept if he had been a boxer or a quarterback, the figures are not encouraging. In seven years of fighting the British, from 1775 to 1782, he won only three clear-cut victories—at Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown. In seven other encounters—Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, Fort Washington, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth—he either was defeated or at best could claim a draw. He never won a major battle. Trenton was essentially a raid, Princeton was little more than a large skirmish, and Yorktown was a siege in which the blockading French fleet was an essential component of the victory." And yet Trenton and Princeton restored morale at the end of a disastrous year, and thereby saved the army and the Revolution? How did Washington do it?

Washington's Crossing is the location of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776 in the American Revolutionary War. This daring maneuver led to victory in the Battle of Trenton and altered the course of the war. The site, a National Historic Landmark, is composed of state parks in Washington Crossing, New Jersey, and Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, north of Trenton, New Jersey. The Washington's Crossing site is located north of Yardley, Pennsylvania and Trenton, New Jersey. The main commemorative sites are located north of the Washington Crossing Bridge spanning the river.

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

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Week 7: Fri., Nov. 20, 2020
The French Connection

NO CLASS NEXT WEEK THANKSGIVING BREAK

During 1777, the Americans had a chicken-and-egg problem with the French. They needed a big victory over the British to secure French support, but they needed French support in order to score a big victory over the British. They got it, in the form of clandestine infusions of money and guns from the French, crucial for the victory at Saratoga in October. After the winter supply crisis at Valley Forge had passed, other problems remained. Upwards of 300 officers departed from Valley Forge, some in anger, frustration, or despair, others implored to come home by their spouses. Discontent with Washington's leadership of the army was fueled by Washington's failures at Brandywine and Germantown, followed by his inability to resist Howe's final drive into Philadelphia, and the misery of Valley Forge. To the rescue came Benjamin Franklin, America's chief emissary in France, who negotiated the alliance that kept the Americans in the war and spelled Britain's ultimate defeat in a war of attrition. How did Franklin do it?

The most important book by an Englishman watching the French Revolution comes from the pen of Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke,

Reflections on the Revolution in France,

Oxford University Press; Reissue edition (June 15, 2009),

ISBN 0199539022

 

Alexis de Tocqueville ,

The Old Regime and the French Revolution,

Anchor; First Thus edition (October 1, 1955),

ISBN 0385092601

About the Author:

From Wikipedia: Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (born July 29, 1805, Paris, died April 16, 1859, Cannes) was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes: 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution(1856). In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in western societies. Democracy in America (1835), his major work, published after his travels in the United States, is today considered an early work of sociology and political science. An eminent representative of the classical liberal political tradition, Tocqueville was an active participant in French politics, first under the July monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup, and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution, Volume I.

Amazon Reviews:

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) wrote many books, but his best-known one is probably "Democracy in America". Despite that, reading "The Old Regime and the Revolution" (1856) is essential in order to understand how much Tocqueville contributed to an accurate analysis of the present and past of his society, and to Political Science.

Why is "The Old Regime and the Revolution" a classic?. Why do teachers keep recommending it to their students?. In my opinion, the answer to both those questions is that this book is an example of the kind of work a political scientist is capable of producing, if inclined to do so. Here, Tocqueville doesn't pay attention to the conventionally accepted truth, but looks beyond it, in order to form his own opinion. And when the result of that process is shocking, he doesn't back down bounded by conventions: he simply states his conclusions.

In "The Old Regime and the Revolution" Alexis de Tocqueville does what at his time was considered more or less unthinkable: to put into question the revolutionary character of...the French Revolution. He said that the only way to understand what happened in 1789 was to study the previous social processes, and to find what they have in com Thurs. with what came about later. This change of perspective was radical, but effective. It didn't presuppose anything, and so it helped the author to arrive to a seemingly strange conclusion: that the French Revolution had not only continued with the social processes that were taking place in France, but accentuated them. For example, the governmental centralization was much worse after 1789. In a way, then, the French Revolution only carried forward with what the Old Regime had already started.

On the whole, I recommend this book mainly to those interested in French History and Political Science. It isn't overly easy to read, but you will realize that it is full of interesting information, and permeated by a painstakingly careful analysis regarding social processes that is remarkable. In my opinion, "The Old Regime and the Revolution" is a book that you won't regret buying :)

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

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Week 8: Fri., Dec. 4, 2020
American Genius: Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton

Why Hamilton? How is it that of all the founders, he's the one whose life story has become the subject of a hit Broadway musical? Indeed, perhaps the biggest hit in Broadway history. Why Hamilton, and not Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison? After all, each of those men became president, whereas Hamilton never did. The last time he was on Broadway, in 1804, Hamilton was in a coffin, on the way to his burial in the graveyard of Trinity Church, at Broadway and 12th. He hadn't managed to reach the age of fifty. But in an age of geniuses, he was one of the greatest. During the Revolution, Hamilton, while still in his early twenties, Hamilton became George Washington’s chief aide and played a heroic role in several battles, including the one that forced the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. Like the commander-in-chief, Hamilton thought "continentally," and he was so good at reading Washington's mind that the general trusted him to manage his correspondence and even to write his orders. And that was just the beginning of Hamilton's brilliant career.

American historian Gordon Wood commenting on Alexander Hamilton at the opening of the "Hamilton" musical on Broadway in New York Review of Books, January 14, 2016: "Although Alexander Hamilton never became president of the United States, he is more famous than most presidents . . . because of the hit Broadway show Hamilton. Indeed, the response to this musical has been phenomenal: it is sold out for months. Both the left and the right like this play; President Obama, who took his daughters to see it, said that he was “pretty sure this is the only thing that Dick Cheney and I have agreed on—during my entire political career.” It’s patriotic without being self-righteous or stuffy. So excited have people become with this musical treatment of the rise and fall of our first secretary of the treasury that the Rockefeller Foundation and the producers have agreed to finance a program to bring 20,000 New York City eleventh-graders to see Hamilton at a series of matinees beginning next spring and running through 2017. Using a curriculum put together by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, they plan on drawing the students largely from schools that have a high percentage of low-income families. No one thought of doing this for Jesus Christ Superstar, Les Misérables, or even 1776, which dealt with America’s writing of the Declaration of Independence. This show is different. Not only is it sung in the stylized rhythmic and rhyming manner of rap and hip-hop, but perhaps more important, the cast is deliberately composed almost entirely of African-Americans and Latinos. This symbolizes as nothing else could that the history of the founding of the United States belongs to all Americans at all times and in all places and not simply to elite white Anglo-Saxon males who lived in the eighteenth century. Since we Americans have no common race or ethnicity, the main things that hold us together and make us a nation are the ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy that came out of the Revolution, the most important event in American history, in which Hamilton was a major participant. Americans have been desperate to attach all immigrants and all minorities to the history and meaning of the US, and this play helps to do that. It is no wonder that it has been so passionately and universally celebrated."

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

Week 9: Fri., Dec. 11, 2020
Loyalists, Traitors, and Spies

Thomas Hutchinson, the loyalist governor of Massachusetts, tried his best to prevent the Revolution from occurring by strangling the Patriot cause in its cradle. His reputation has been rehabilitated by one of our greatest historians of the colonial era, Bernard Bailyn. Benedict Arnold's reputation, alas, is beyond any hope of rehabilitation: he was a turncoat rather than a loyalist, i.e., a traitor. He had been a hero of the battle of Saratoga, so why did he betray the glorious cause? Money, love, insufficient recognition of his achievements? We'll try to understand the man behind a name that has become synonymous with treason in American history. And finally, one more type, the opposite of Arnold: the spy, Abraham Woodhull, of Setauket, Long Island. He took enormous risks anonymously, without any thought of gain beyond getting his expenses paid. And he did so because he hated the British and had been converted to the Patriot cause, from which he never wavered. He and his comrades in the Culper spy ring did what Arnold failed to do: they helped to determine the outcome of the war.

Thomas Hutchinson (9 September 1711 – 3 June 1780) was a businessman, historian, and a prominent Loyalist politician of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the years before the American Revolution. He has been referred to as "the most important figure on the loyalist side in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts". He was a successful merchant and politician, and was active at high levels of the Massachusetts government for many years, serving as lieutenant governor and then governor from 1758 to 1774. He was a politically polarizing figure who came to be identified by John Adams and Samuel Adams as a proponent of hated British taxes, despite his initial opposition to Parliamentary tax laws directed at the colonies. He was blamed by Lord North (the British Prime Minister at the time) for being a significant contributor to the tensions that led to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Hutchinson's Boston mansion was ransacked in 1765 during protests against the Stamp Act, damaging his collection of materials on early Massachusetts history. As acting governor in 1770, he exposed himself to mob attack in the aftermath of the Boston massacre, after which he ordered the removal of troops from Boston to Castle William. Letters of his calling for abridgement of colonial rights were published in 1773, further intensifying dislike of him in the colony. He was replaced as governor in May 1774 by General Thomas Gage, and went into exile in England, where he advised the government on how to deal with the colonists. Hutchinson had a deep interest in colonial history, collecting many historical documents. He wrote a three-volume History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay whose last volume, published posthumously, covered his own period in office. Historian Bernard Bailyn wrote of Hutchinson, "If there was one person in America whose actions might have altered the outcome [of the protests and disputes preceding the American Revolutionary War], it was he." Scholars use Hutchinson's career to represent the tragic fate of the many Loyalists marginalized by their attachment to an outmoded imperial structure at a time when the modern nation-state was emerging. Hutchinson exemplifies the difficulties experienced by Loyalists, paralyzed by his ideology and his dual loyalties to America and Britain. He sacrificed his love for Massachusetts to his loyalty to Great Britain, where he spent his last years in unhappy exile.

 

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading

Week 10: Fri., Dec. 18, 2020
Sister Revolutions

In our final lecture, we'll examine the last years of the war, culminating in the British defeat at Yorktown. How and why did Britain's General Charles Cornwallis manage to get his army bottled up there? How did the Americans and the French combine their forces to compel his surrender? And finally, we'll attempt to place the American Revolution in historical perspective by comparing it with its sequel, the French Revolution, which not only emerged out of the financial crisis caused by French support for the American Revolution but was also inspired by the American example. Why did the French Revolution culminate in the dictatorship of Napoleon, whereas the American Revolution issued in the reluctant presidency of George Washington? We'll highlight the career of the Marquis de Lafayette, a brilliant success in the American Revolution, but a failure in the French Revolution, from which he was fortunate to escape with his head still attached to his body!

REQUIRED READING

Gordon S. Wood,

The American Revolution: A History,

Modern Library,

ISBN 0812970411

FURTHER READING FOR THE TEN WEEKS

Here is a PDF document you can download and print with Prof. Thompson's reading for the whole quarter.

AmRevRec Reading