Annual Conference of British Group in Early American History

On September 7–9, 2007, the British Group in Early American History (BGEAH) held its 10th annual conference at Swansea University in Wales. Hosted by Steve Sarson of Swansea’s Department of History, the meeting provided an international forum for discussion of colonial America and the early British Empire, with delegates from the United States, Australia, Spain, France, Ireland, and all parts of Great Britain.

The conference’s main theme, “Place, Memory, and Commemoration,” remembered the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the 200th anniversary of British abolition of the international slave trade. In addition to panels and papers on these subjects, there were also offerings on a variety of topics in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British imperial, American colonial, and early United States history. Brendan McConville of Boston University opened the proceedings by giving the second annual Caroline Robbins Memorial Lecture. His presentation, “American Revolutions: The Changing Structure of State Government in the New Republic, 1776–1794,” will be published by the University of London’s Institute for the Study of the Americas. Michael A. McDonnell, now of the University of Sydney but formerly of the Department of American Studies at Swansea, hosted the “Book Club,” presenting a talk and taking questions on his recently published book, The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2007).

The School of Humanities and the Departments of American Studies and History at Swansea University, The United States Embassy, The Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London, The Mellon Fund, Cambridge University, and the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture provided generous sponsorship for the conference. BGEAH will convene at the University of Manchester in 2008.