"So Sudden an Alteration": The Causes, Course, and Consequences of the American Revolution
Over the past two decades the study of the Revolution has generated little in the way of fundamentally new approaches to the topic. This conference will pay special attention to new ways to understand the political roots and consequences of the crisis.
The program will feature a keynote address by Woody Holton, the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, “‘Not Yet’: The Originality Crisis in American Revolution Studies,” and a proposal by Boston University Professor of History Brendan McConville, "In the Year One: The Revolution Reconsidered," which offers a new approach to thinking about the conflict. It will also include nine panels, each consisting of three precirculated papers, a wrap-up discussion, and an introduction to Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr., the Society’s digital collection of the Revolutionary-era publications that Dorr, a Boston shopkeeper, assembled between the mid 1760s and the mid 1770s, commented on, and indexed. Presenters will not read their papers at the conference; sessions will focus on the discussion of academic papers circulated in advance of the event.
Support for the conference includes grants from Boston University, the David Library of the American Revolution, and Williams College, as well as a gift from an anonymous donor.