OSHER 982 - The Fate of the World: The Global American Revolution

This course will investigate the geopolitical forces that shaped the American Revolution and the international consequences of the US break with Britain. We will ask how the familiar story of the American Revolution—its causes, course, and consequences—changes when we think about the American Revolution as part and parcel of a titanic struggle among European empires and peoples for control of a vast, resource-rich world. Each class session lecture tackles a different group of global actors—Germans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, South Asians, Prussians, etc.—and situates their experiences at the center of dramatic narratives about the loss of the British Empire’s thirteen golden geese and the birth of the United States.