When I taught a course on the American Revolution last year, we spent a lot of time talking about the ideas that shaped American responses to British colonial policy in the 1760’s. There were several important ideological factors at work in American political thought during that period—a mistrust of power, a pervasive fear of conspiracies, [...]
Archive for the ‘American Revolution’ Category
Cynicism in the classroom
Posted in American Revolution, Teaching history, tagged American Revolution on October 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Electric Map 2.0
Posted in American Revolution, Civil War, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged Cowpens, Electric Map, Gettysburg, Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center, Gettysburg National Military Park on September 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A couple of days ago I posted about a news item that Eric Wittenberg mentioned on his blog. To recap, the folks at Gettysburg National Military Park are thinking about reviving the Electric Map in the form of a film presentation.
Critics of the map said that it was too big and too antiquated, and I [...]
URGENT: Battlefield in trouble
Posted in American Revolution, Historic Preservation, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged American Revolution, Battle of Brandywine, Brandywine Battlefield, Revolutionary War on August 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Brandywine Battlefield, one of the most important Revolutionary War sites in the country, is in some serious trouble, and its supporters have set up a website where you can get information and offer your support.
Due to a loss of state funding, the park’s supporters are trying to raise enough money to keep the site running [...]
Unconventional warfare at its most ruthless
Posted in American Revolution, tagged Francis Marion, Swamp Fox on August 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Remember during the invasion of Panama, when Noriega was holed up in the Apostolci Nunciature, and the American troops set up loudspeakers and blasted rock music around the clock to try to break his will?
It might shed light on why the British finally evacuated South Carolina.
Incidentally, I had no idea until I saw the credits [...]
Bait and switch
Posted in American Revolution, tagged Bunker Hill on July 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
So I find an article on Wikipedia that lists the titles of upcoming films, and I decide to scroll through it:
Hey, are my eyes deceiving me, or do I see a movie called Bunker Hill on that list? Could it be that Hollywood is going to give us its first major treatment of the Revolutionary War since The Patriot?
I head [...]
Get your very own Thomas Jefferson decoder ring!
Posted in American Revolution, tagged ciphers, codebreaking, Robert Patterson, Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Actually, I just wanted you to read this article about a cipher found in Jefferson’s correspondence. A Princeton mathematician has cracked it using a computer algorithm, and it’s pretty interesting stuff.
This is one sub-discipline of history I won’t be working in anytime soon, and anyone who’s seen my math scores on the GRE can attest to it.
Thanks to Neela Vaswani [...]
Happy Original Independence Day
Posted in American Revolution, tagged American Revolution, Continental Congress, Independence Day, John Adams, Richard Henry Lee on July 2, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Go out to your backyard tonight and set off those fireworks a couple of days early. When your irate neighbors open their windows and lean out to ask you what the heck you think you’re doing, you can give them a little history lesson.
The Continental Congress actually voted to make America independent on July 2, 1776. [...]
General Grey makes a cameo
Posted in American Revolution, tagged Anthony Wayne, Banastre Tarleton, Duchess of Devonshire, General Charles Grey, Paoli Massacre, The Duchess on June 15, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Historical connections pop up in weird places. The other night I indulged in a repeat viewing of The Duchess, an eighteenth-century romantic biopic about Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.
I made a point of seeing The Duchess when it hit theaters last year, for three reasons. First, it’s based on Amanda Foreman’s bestselling biography of Georgiana. This is one [...]
Reconstructing the Revolution
Posted in American Revolution, History on the Web, tagged American Revolution, Battle of Cowpens, historical miniatures, Revolutionary War on April 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve added a new link to the blogroll that merits your attention. It’s called A Miniature History of the American Revolution, and it’s fascinating. The author (who uses the nom de plume “AD”) is documenting his efforts to reconstruct the war’s battles with small figures, using in-depth research in both primary and secondary sources. His current [...]
A look behind the banner
Posted in American Revolution, Colonial America, History and Memory, Tennessee History, tagged East Tennessee, Lloyd Branson, Revolutionary War, Sycamore Shoals on March 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Ah, the banner—that nifty picture strip that runs along the top of so many sites and blogs with a dash of personalized flair. Maybe you’ve been wondering where I got mine. If you guessed that it’s from Lloyd Branson’s painting Gathering of the Overmountain Men at Sycamore Shoals, 1780, now in the fabulous Tennessee State Museum, then give yourself a [...]
