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The Atlantic Revolutions 1763-1826
Douglas Bradburn
Von Holst Lecturer
University of Chicago
Fall 2001
dmbradbu@midway.uchicago.edu“A man may perish by the sword, yet no man draws the sword to perish, but to live by it.” James Harrington, A System of Politics
This course provides an introduction to the momentous social, political, and cultural transformations that characterized the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American Revolutions. Straddling the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, these social and political movements have long been considered (although often loosely or uncritically) part of an “Age of Revolutions,” a watershed of change that violently ushered in the problems and possibilities of the modern world. Each of these Revolutions has been widely and critically studied in the past two centuries and each still serves mythical purposes in the founding narratives of distinct national histories. But as an epoch in the origins of the modern world and the development of conceptions of modern democratic politics, these “Atlantic revolutions” offer much from a comparative study.
Using both primary and secondary texts, the course explores the social and structural conflicts, ideologies, and political circumstances that defined the character, causes, limits, and consequences of these Atlantic revolutions. Topics to receive specific examination include the importance of nationalism and universalism to the strategies of revolt and counter-revolution, the place of race and slavery in international revolution, the movement of people and ideas across national boundaries, the role of economic and social conflicts to the progress of revolution, and the significance of religion and culture to the purpose and course of revolution. In addition the class will engage both classical and modern theories of revolution to further understand the place of these conflicts in the history of the Western world.Course Requirements.
Active Participation in Class Discussion. 10%.
Document Collection. 20% Due Date, 10/18
Choose a person or significant event relating to any of the revolutions discussed in class. Find four or five primary documents, (i.e. edited letters or journals, pamphlets, newspaper clipping, etc.) relating to your topic and write a one to two page summary of their contents.Book Review. 20% Due Date, 11/08
Find one book on a theme, person or event relating to any of the topics discussed in the class, provide a concise two/three page summary of the arguments of the book.Final Essay. 50% Due Date, 12/04
Review Essay. Expand your book review with three/four more books on a similar topic. Write a 8-10 page essay analyzing the arguments of the different books.
OR
Research Paper. Expand your document collection into a research paper. Find more primary sources and make an argument about your specific historical question in 8-10 pages.Required Texts. These are available at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore.
You can also get them online at Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.comRobin Blackburn, Overthrow of Colonial Slavery
Jeremy Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution
Lynn Hunt, ed., The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History
Edward Countryman, The American Revolution
Richard Graham, Independence in Latin America: A Comparative ApproachOther Materials for consideration and study will be provided.
Week I. The Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century—Prelude to Revolution9/25. Introductions
Lecture: The Idea of comparative History. The Idea of the Atlantic World.9/27. Politics, Society, and Economy in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World
Lecture: The Ancièn Regime and the Atlantic System in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Readings,
Edward Countryman, The American Revolution, 9-40.
Robin Blackburn, “Introduction: Colonial Slavery in the New World c. 1770,” in Overthrow of Colonial Slavery,1-31.Week II. Transformation and Reform
10/02. Economic, Social, and Demographic Strains Upon Atlantic Societies
Lecture and Discussion: Cracking the Shell, Conflict and Change At the Margins
Readings,
Jeremy Popkin, A Short History, 1-20.
Richard Graham, Independence in Latin America, 1-36.
10/04. Reform and Resistance
Lecture: Dealing with Debt: Rationalizing the Institutions of the Early Modern State
Readings,
Graham, Independence in Latin America, 37-60.
Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution, 21-35.Week III. From Resistance to Revolution
10/09. The Immediate Impulses
Lecture and Discussion: Groups and Causes, The Politics of Resistance
Readings,
Graham, Independence in Latin America, 61-78.
Edward Countryman, The American Revolution, 41-73.
James Otis, The Rights of British Colonies Asserted and Proved, Selections.10/11. From Resistance to Revolution: The American Case
Lecture and Discussion: Shots Heard Round the World: The Transformative Events of Revolution
Readings,
Edward Countryman, The American Revolution, 87-104, 105-137.
Debates in the Continental Congress, SelectionsWeek IV. Ideologies of Revolution
10/16. Republicanism v. Monarchy: The Challenge to Hierarchy
Lecture and Discussion: Republicanism and Liberalism: A Historiographical Debate
Readings,
Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution, 36-52.
Abbé Sieyès, “What is the Third Estate?” in Hunt, 63-70.
Simón Bolívar, “Reply of a South American to A Gentleman of This Island”10/18. Nationalism and Universalism
Lecture and Discussion: Philosophy in Action
Readings,
The Declaration of Independence
“ Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen,” in Hunt, 71-79
Tom Paine, The Rights of Man, Selections
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Selections
****Document Collection DueWeek V The Problem of Slavery
10/23. The Assault on Slavery
Lecture and Discussion: The Antislavery Debate: History and Historians
Readings,
Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 33-66, 267-291.
Hector St. John d'Crevecoeur, Letter IX, Description of Charlestown10/25. Revolutionary Emancipation: The Haitian Case
Lecture and Discussion: War and the End of Slavery
Readings,
Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 213-264.
Assorted Documents Pertaining to Abolition, in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 101-116.Week VI The Construction of Revolutionary States: The Problem of Citizenship
10/30. Religion, Tolerance, and the Ideal of Pluralism
Lecture and Discussion: Religion and Revolution
Readings,
Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom
Documents relating to Toleration and Citizenship for Protestants and Jews, in Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 84-99.11/01. The Limits of Revolutionary Citizenship
Lecture and Discussion: Race, Gender and the Limits of Revolution
Readings,
“ Slave and Free Black Petitions for Freedom and Citizenship”
Excerpt from Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
Countryman, The American Revolution, 214-245.
Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 119-139.Week VII The Construction of Revolutionary States: The Problem of Union
11/06. Constitutional Order
Lecture and Discussion: Conventions, Constitutions, and the Organization of Power
Readings,
Edward Countryman, The American Revolution, 175-213.
Jacques Turgot, “On the American Constitutions,” Selections.
John Adams, “Defense of the Constitutions.” Selections.
Simón Bolívar, “Speech before the Congress of Angostura,” Feb. 15, 1819.11/08. The Problem of Nationhood: The Case of Latin America
Lecture and Discussion: The Idea of Gran Columbia
Readings,
Graham, Independence in Latin America, 79-135.
*****Book Review DueWeek VIII. Agents of Revolution: Generals and Crowds
11/13. Generals
Lecture and Discussion: Revolution and “The Great Man”: Washington, Napoleon, L’Ouverture, and Bolivar
Readings,
Gary Wills, Cincinatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment, (New York, 1984) 3-25, and illustrations.
François Furet, “Napolean Bonaparte,” in Furet and Ozouf, A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, (Cambridge, MA 1989),273-86.
C.L.R. James, “Preface to the First Edition,” and “The Rise of Toussaint,” The Black Jacobins, ix-xi, 146-162.
David Bushnell, The Liberator Simón Bolívar; Man and Image. (New York, 1970), 3-26.11/15. Crowds: The French Case
Lecture and Discussion: Liberty Poles and Songs: Popular Action and Radical Revolutionary Culture
Readings,
George Rudè, “The Rioters,” in Kafker and Laux, eds., The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations (Malabar, Florida, 4th ed., 1989) 230-241.
Albert Soboul, “The Sans-Cullotes,” in Kafker and Laux, 242-258.
Richard Cobb, “A Critique,” in Kafker and Laux, 259-269.
Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution, 65-90.Week IX Counter-Revolution
11/20. Counter-Revolutionary Moments
Discussion and Lecture: Thinking About Thermidor
Readings,
Popkin, A Short History of the French Revolution, 87-113.
Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 381-413.11/22. Happy Thanksgiving
Week X Towards a Theory of the Atlantic Revolutions
11/27. Theories of Revolution
Discussion and Lecture: Atlantic Revolution or Atlantic Revolutions?
Readings,
Aristotle, The Politics, Selections.
M. Richter, “Tocqueville’s Contributions to the Theory of Revolution,” in Carl J. Freidrich, Revolutions (New York, 1966), 175-221.
E. Kamenka, “The Concept of a Political Revolution,” in Carl J. Frederich, ed., Revolutions (New York, 1966), 122-138.
Theda Skocpol, “Explaining Revolutions: In quest of a social-structural approach,” Skocpol, ed., Social Revolutions in the Modern World, (Cambridge, 1994) 99-116.
11/29. Reading Period
12/04. *****Final Essay Due
Please send inquiries or comments to Atlantic History Seminar, Harvard University.
© 2003 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Created September 2003.
