HIST 218 - The American Revolution

FC SSCI

4 credits
An exploration of the United States’ founding era, from the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 to the “Republican Revolution” of 1800. “Thirteen clocks had been made to strike together,” John Adams once recalled of the War for American Independence, “a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected.” This course interrogates Adams’ consensus-driven interpretation of the Revolution by assessing the causes and effects of independence in American social and political life. Our investigation into the meaning of independence for diverse Americans will ultimately help us address a longstanding historiographical problem: How revolutionary was the American Revolution?
This course is appropriate for new students.