HIS5138 Atlantic Revolutions: America, France, Haiti
This advanced seminar will focus on the development of three distinctive, yet closely related revolutions in the eighteenth century: the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, and the slave revolt in St. Domingue that led to the founding of the Republic of Haiti in 1804. We will investigate these revolutions together and comparatively to examine the developments that led to the rise of a 'revolutionary' culture in the countries around the Atlantic in the 18th century. We will further examine what difference the long decades of war and revolution actually made in the political history of the North Atlantic world and how these extraordinary conflicts lay the foundation of the politics of the modern world. An off-campus research trip to the New York Historical Society?s extraordinary collections is a required component of this seminar.