The Habsburgs and the American Revolution: A Missing Chapter
Introduction In this interview: “May 13, 1779 is not a date well remembered by historians of the American Revolution, but it should be.” Watch this segment in the video below (00:38:41) Why did Benjamin Franklin enjoy greater access to Maria Theresa – Holy Roman Empress – than to Louis XVI – the French king? Did […]
Did the Declaration of Independence Actually Have Legal Authority?
Introduction In this interview: “They have to wait for the colonies to give them authority to go along with this. So the whole status of exactly the authority of the Declaration of Independence, it couldn’t stand alone. It required each colony to also declare independence, which they basically did.” Watch this segment in the video […]
1776: Seven Months That Changed America
Introduction In this interview: “1776 witnesses the drafting of the first written constitutions in the history of the world. Those were those new state constitutions that Congress called for in May of 1776. So that’s why this year was not a rebellion. That’s why this year was a revolutionary transformation in government…” Watch this segment […]
The Boston Massacre Trial: Politics & Performance?
Reconsidering the Boston Massacre – Part IV If the shooting on King Street was chaos, the trials that followed were something else entirely—carefully staged, deeply political, and just as consequential. From the start, this wasn’t only about guilt or innocence. It was about perception—who could claim the moral high ground, not just in Boston, but […]
Boston Massacre Reconsidered: Dr. Serena Zabin Interview, Part III
Reassessing the Boston Massacre and the Path It Paved to Revolution Long before open hostilities, revolutionary thinking was shaped by Enlightenment ideas, as Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld explains in our program. These intellectual developments—the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, and the Age of Revolutions—reshaped how people in Europe and the American colonies thought about […]
Boston Massacre Reconsidered: Dr. Serena Zabin Interview, Part II
Reassessing the Boston Massacre and the Path It Paved to Revolution Long before open hostilities, revolutionary thinking was shaped by Enlightenment ideas, as Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld explains in our program. These intellectual developments—the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, and the Age of Revolutions—reshaped how people in Europe and the American colonies thought about […]
Boston Massacre Reconsidered: Was It A Massacre?
Introduction In this interview: “But really, what I came to realize is that the, you know, the things that we can know, are not necessarily the things that the parties at the time cared about hiding.” Watch this section in the video below (00:25:24). Was the Boston Massacre inevitable? For its time, was it truly […]
Boston Massacre Reconsidered: Dr. Serena Zabin Interview, Part I
Reassessing the Boston Massacre and the Path It Paved to Revolution Long before open hostilities, revolutionary thinking was shaped by Enlightenment ideas, as Dr. Sophia Rosenfeld explains in our program. These intellectual developments—the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, and the Age of Revolutions—reshaped how people in Europe and the American colonies thought about […]
