A Cuban Angle on the Revolution

By Alex Borucki (University of California, Irvine) and José Luis Belmonte Postigo (Universidad de Sevilla) The authors’ article, “The Impact of the American Revolutionary War on the Slave Trade to Cuba” was published in the July 2023 William and Mary Quarterly. You can read the abstract here. How does the essay relate to your larger project and/or more… Read More

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Racialization and Dispossession in the Memory of the American Revolution

by Blake Grindon (Princeton University) Blake Grindon is the author of “Hilliard d’Auberteuil’s Mis Mac Rea: A Story of the American Revolution in the French Atlantic” (William and Mary Quarterly, October 2022). Many years ago, when I first became intrigued by Jane McCrea—the subject of my dissertation and of my recent WMQ article—I searched her name in the catalogue… Read More

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2026 and Insurance: A Conversation with Hannah Farber

In this installment of interviews with OI Book authors about the Semiquincentennial, Hannah Farber discusses marine insurance—a topic that seems below the surface but that nonetheless had a significant impact on the Revolution and American independence. Her 2021 book, Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding, navigates a cast… Read More

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GPP Coffee Break

Join Georgian Papers Programme scholar Angel-Luke O’Donnell for an online version of the popular GPP Coffee Break series at King’s College London. Join us on January 21, 2022, at 3:30 pm GST (10:30 am EST) for a presentation by John McCurdy (Eastern Michigan University) as he outlines the connections between manhood and military service in Georgian Britain and colonial… Read More

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Vast Early America at the Washington History Seminar

Join OI author Robert G. Parkinson for an OI-sponsored session of the National History Center’s Washington History Seminar. Usually convened in person at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC, the event will take place online. On December 20, 2021, a roundtable on Thirteen Clocks: How Race United the Colonies and Made the Declaration of Independence will take place with… Read More

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Reading for Teaching: A Vast Early America Book Club

How do we incorporate scholarship on early America, both old and new, into our teaching–whether that teaching happens in a K-12 classroom, on a university campus, or at a museum? In this every-other-monthly reading group, teachers come together to think collaboratively about how to engage with audiences from a broad spectrum and in a wide variety of contexts. “Reading… Read More

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Religions, Nation States, and Politics in Vast Early America

Join us for an OI Author Conversation with Kate Carté and Julia Gaffield. How can we best understand the connections between religion, war, and political upheaval in the Age of Revolution?  Explorations into the intersection of politics and religion are often framed in terms of the impact of political upheaval on religious faith and practice.  Seen this way, religion figures… Read More

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2026 and Religion: A Conversation with Katherine Carté

With this post, Uncommon Sense inaugurates a planned series of conversations with OI book authors about how their work relates to the American Revolution. It is one of the ways in which the OI is contributing to the Semiquincentennial, the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. In its eight decades, the… Read More

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BFW: Experiences of Revolution, Part 2: Disruptions in Yorktown

Each year, the Ben Franklin’s World team produces a special episode for the Fourth of July holiday. This year, we’re going even further, sharing two themed episodes that explore how ordinary Americans experienced the Revolutionary War. On Tuesday, July 5, the second of those episodes—“Experiences of Revolution, Part 2: Disruptions in Yorktown,” episode 333—debuts wherever… Read More

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BFW: Experiences of Revolution, Part 1: Occupied Philadelphia

Each year, the Ben Franklin’s World team produces a special episode for the Fourth of July holiday. This year, we’re going even further, sharing two themed episodes that explore how ordinary Americans experienced the Revolutionary War. On Tuesday, June 28, the first of those episodes—“Experiences of Revolution, Part 1: Occupied Philadelphia,” episode 332—debuts wherever you enjoy… Read More

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Down the Rabbit Hole with Sigenauk

By John William Nelson John William Nelson (Texas Tech University) is the author of “Sigenauk’s War of Independence: Anishinaabe Resurgence and the Making of Indigenous Authority in the Borderlands of Revolution” in the October 2021 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. I did not set out to write a history of an obscure… Read More

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Blue Sky for the Fourth of July

By Karin Wulf, Executive Director of the Omohundro Institute If there is a year for blue sky thinking—aspirational, bold, and collaborative—this is it. In five years the United States will mark the semi-quincentennial—the 250th anniversary—of its Declaration of Independence.  There will be fireworks, there will be speeches, and surely there will be hotdogs.  There will also be a host… Read More

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