General Reading

Gordon Wood, “Part I: Monarchy,” in The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Jack P. Greene, “An Uneasy Connection, an Analysis of the Preconditions of the American Revolution,” in Stephen Kurtz and James Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1973. | online

Thomas Purvis,"Seven Years' War and its Political Legacy,” in Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole, eds. A Companion to the American Revolution. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. | online

Optional Reading

Eric Hinderaker, “The Amerindian Population in 1763” in Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole, eds. A Companion to the American Revolution. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. | online

Ira Berlin, “Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on British Mainland North America,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Feb., 1980), 44-78. | online

Response Statement Prompt

In our first topic, we will be examining British North America on the eve of the Revolution. What was the colonial world like in the early eighteen century, and how did the American colonists view their relationship with Great Britain? In answering these questions, I'd like you to respond to three separate prompts.

1) How does Gordon Wood explain early eighteenth century British North America? He describes a monarchial world of hierarchy, patricians and plebeians, patriarchal dependence, patronage, and political authority. What do the phrases mean in practical terms?

2) If the colonists in British North America lived in a monarchial world, how was that world changing in the mid-eighteenth century? Focusing on sections one and two from Jack Greene's essay, "An Uneasy Connection," describe the five conditions for self-governing states he sees emerging in the colonies by 1750.

3) Finally, Jack Green argues that there was a disconnect between British colonial theory and practice in the mid-eighteenth century. The British considered their colonial empire centralized in the crown-in-parliament, while colonists had "achieved a high degree of competency (and self-governance) by the 1750s and 1760s." Explore this disconnect between British colonial theory and practice in more detail, and then explain how the French and Indian War (and its aftermath) brought the descrepancy to the attention of people on both sides of the Atlantic. (To answer this final part of the prompt read part four of Thomas Purvis's essay, "The Seven Years' War and its Political Legacy." Also, you may view the map, chart, PowerPoint, and Video-Lecture I use on this topic in class).

Due Date

- 500-1000 word response statement due: September 10

General Reading

Bernard Bailyn, "The Central Themes of the American Revolution: An Interpretation," in in Stephen Kurtz and James Hutson, eds., Essays on the American Revolution. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1973. | online

Woody Holton, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1999.

Optional Reading

Daniel T. Rodgers, “Republicanism: the Career of a Concept,” Journal of American History, Vol. 79, No. 1. (Jun., 1992), 11-38. | online

Jack P. Greene, "Origins of the American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation" in Understanding the American Revolution: Issues and Actors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995. | online

Response Statement Prompt

For our second topic, we will be examining the origins of the American Revolution, looking specifically at the period from 1763 to 1776. This era remains one of the most hotly contested periods in American historiography, and we are going to compare and contrast two standard works in the field.

Your first reading is a brief article from Bernard Bailyn, in which he summarizes a much more extensive argument made famous in his book, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. How does Bailyn view the origins of the Revolution? What drove the revolutionaries, and what themes does Bailyn find arising from the period?

Your second reading is Woody Holton's Forced Founders, a more recent book that challenges the underlying argument made by Bailyn. How does Holton view the origins of the Revolution? What drove the revolutionaries, and why did they ultimately seek independence?

In a brief overview of 500 to 1000 words, compare and contrast the arguments made by Bailyn and Holton. If you're interested, I've posted my materials for the introductory course on this period: notes, handout , PowerPoint.

Due Date

- 500-1000 word response statement due: September 24

General Reading

Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1922. | skim online

Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997.

Optional Reading

John Locke, Second Treatise on Government. Read these sections: #4, 6, 27, 31, 87, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 134, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225. Available online from Oregon State University. | online

Response Statement Prompt

In her book, American Scripture, Pauline Maier challenges many of the most commonly-held assumptions about the Declaration of Independence. In a review of 500 to 1000 words explain her thesis and how she supports it?

Due Date

- 500-1000 word response statement due: October 5

General Reading

Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1979.

Elizabeth Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.

Response Statement Prompt and Due Date

During the summer of 2000, Centropolis Entertainment, Columbia Pictures, and SONY Pictures Entertainment released Roland Emmerich's film The Patriot. The movie tells the story of Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson), a South Carolina planter and widower with seven children. His horrific experiences in the French and Indian War make him unwilling to take up arms against the British when South Carolina votes for independence in 1776, though his eldest son, Gabriel (Heath Ledger), joins the Continental army. Martin is forced to take sides when the war literally comes into his front yard and British troops harm his family and burn his home. He assumes command of the local militia and becomes the scourge of the British, cutting their supply lines and attacking their outposts. Martin and his men pay a heavy personal price for their patriotism, but they persevere and play a key role in defeating the British army in South Carolina. After Gen. Charles Cornwallis surrenders and the Revolutionary War comes to an end, Martin and his men return to South Carolina to rebuild their independent country.

The Patriot is a well-crafted, exhilarating action film, and Emmerich even worked with historians from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to make the setting and atmosphere as accurate as possible. Yet, much of The Patriot is horribly wrong. The general themes of the film are inaccurate, as are specific details of the campaigns in the war. In short, Emmerich and Gibson created a patriotic take on the American Revolution that sought to portray American heroes and British villains.

Your job in this assignment is to craft an essay that describes the period of the Revolutionary War in as accurate a way as possible. To do this, you should select and review either Charles Royster's A Revolutionary People at War or Elizabeth Fenn's Pox Americana. Be sure to highlight the main arguments presented in the book you choose, as well as the key turning points in the author's narrative.

Due Date

- 500-1000 word response statement due: October 15

General Reading

Gordon Wood, “Part II: Republicanism,” in The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998. (Read "The Madisonian Madison: An Introduction"; "James Madison and the Nationalist"; "The Crisis of Confederation Government"; and "The Crisis of Republican Convictions").

J.R. Pole, "Shays's Rebellion and the Problem of Opposition Politics," from Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic. New York, St. Martin's Press, 1966. | online

Optional Reading

Merrill Jensen, "The Achievements of the Confederation" from The New Nation: A History of the United States during the Confederation, 1781-1789. New York: Knopf, 1950. | online

Jack Rakove, "The Confederation: A Union Without Power" from The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. New York: Knopf, 1979. | online

Response Statement Prompt

For our fifth topic, we will be examining the Confederation Period between 1781 and 1787. What did the emerging American nation look like during this period? What problems did the people in the new country face? And, how did the leaders of the republic seek to reconcile individual liberty and government power? In answering these questions, I'd like you to respond to four separate prompts.

1) What does Gordon Wood mean when he says that America's revolutionary leaders were motivated by and sought to create a new republican world? He describes a truncated society, with loosened bands, enlightened paternalism, and benevolence. What do the phrases mean in practical terms?

2) As the people of the new nation sought to create an independent republic in the 1780s, they faced many complex economic and social problems. James Madison, a young Virginia statesman, emerged as a key player in the debates that took place in the Confederation Congress. Describe what historian Lance Banning called the Crisis of Confederation Government and the way Madison and his contemporaries sought to overcome the crisis.

3) In a paragraph or two (if you have not already clearly done so), explain the major accomplishments of the Confederation government and its key structural and practical deficiencies.

4) Finally, explain briefly how Shays's Rebellion created the impetus for a Constitutional Convention in May 1787.

Due Date
- 500-1000 word response statement due: October 29

General Reading

Notes on Charles Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913.| online

Richard Beeman. Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution. New York: Random House, 2009.

Optional Reading

Jan Lewis, “'Of Every Age Sex & Condition': The Representation of Women in the Constitution.” Journal of the Early Republic. Vol. 15 (Fall 1995): 359-87.

James H. Merrell, “Declarations of Independence : Indian-White Relations in the New Nation,” in Jack P. Greene, ed., The American Revolution: Its Character and its Limits. New York: New York University Press, 1987, 197-223.

Response Statement Prompt

In his classic work, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913), Progressive historian Charles Beard argued that the U.S. Constitution was an anti-democratic document proposed and ratified by merchants, money lenders, and capitalists who were bent on solidifying and protecting their own economic interests. Like most recent historians, Richard Beeman rejects Beard's argument. Who were the "Plain, Honest Men" that Beeman described and what did they want to accomplish?

Due Date
- 500-1000 word response statement due: November 9

General Reading

Gordon Wood, "The Worthy Against the Licentious" from The Creation of the American Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969. | online

Bernard Bailyn, “Fulfillment” from The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967. | online

Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Optional Reading

Saul Cornell,The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1999.

Response Statement Prompt and Due Date

In her recent book, Ratification, historian Pauline Maier examines the debates that took place between 1787 and 1788 as the American people fought over the new Constitution and what ratification of the document might mean for the country and its future. How does Maier present this vital episode in American history? What groups were involved? What positions did they take? And, was ratification a fulfillment of the revolutionary ethos or a repudiation of it?

Due Date
- 500-1000 word response statement due: November 19

General Reading

William Freehling, "The Founding Fathers and Slavery." The American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 1. (Feb., 1972): 81-93. | online

Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.

Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons. New York: Palgrave, 2012.

Optional Reading

Paul Finkelman, “Slavery and the Constitutional Convention: Making a Covenant with Death,” in Richard Beeman et al, eds., Beyond Confederation: Origins of the Constitution and American National Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987, 188-225.

Response Statement Prompt

Based on your reading of either The Hemingses of Monticello or A Slave in the White House, respond to the following statement by William W. Freehling. In particular, use the book you select to illustrate how the approach to enslaved Americans and the founding generation has changed since Freehling wrote his essay, “The Founding Fathers and Slavery,” in 1972.

“The new charge that the Founding Fathers did next to nothing about bondage is as misleading as the older notion that they did almost everything. The abolitionist process proceeded slowly but inexorably from 1776 to 1860: slowly in part because of what they did. The impact of the Founding Fathers on slavery, like the extent to which the American Revolution was revolutionary must be seen in the long run not in terms of what changed in the late eighteenth century but in terms of how the Revolutionary experience changed the whole of American antebellum history. Any such view must place Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries, for all their ironies and missed opportunities, back into the creeping American antislavery process.”

Due Date
- 500-1000 word response statement due: November 30

General Reading

Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Vintage, 2002.

Gordon Wood, “Part III: Democracy,” in The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

Optional Reading

Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1948 (Read introduction, chapter 1, and chapter 2).

Response Statement Prompt

In his essay, "The Generation," historian Joseph Ellis discusses the theoretical "incompatibility" of two American foundings. What were the two American foundings that Ellis discussed? How were they different (be specific)? And, how did the competing foundings give way to the new democracy described by Gordon Wood in Radicalism of the American Revolution?

Due Date
- 500-1000 word response statement due: December 10