Above: The Palace of King George III, in Kew Gardens, is one of
the featured sites of the London Study Abroad Program.

This study abroad class in London provides an opportunity for students to understand the meanings of the American Revolution from British perspectives.  While some in England offered strong support and even revolutionary pamphlets to the colonists’ rebellion against English domination, others fully supported the strengthening and extension of British imperial strength.  Fortunately, many of the most prominent English writers and politicians weighed in on this important debate.  Scholarly analyses of their writings offer fascinating insights into the larger significance of the Revolution. 

For each week, you will read several articles (all of which are available on Angel). I have listed below a total of 19 readings. (Graduate students are required to read all 19 articles and undergraduate students are required to read only 13 of them.)  That means that you can subtract two from each week’s readings. You will need to turn in ALL typed assignments BEFORE we leave for England.  I will comment on all your writings and return them to you on the first day of the course.  You will then bring your written assignments (with my comments on them) to each of our discussions on the readings. Read and write one-two page discussions of each of the readings.  Try to critically engage the ideas and argument of the author.  Do not simply say “I liked this article” or “I disliked this article.”  Instead, engage with the ideas more critically.  Link the readings to each other when possible (note contradictions, agreements, and disagreements between authors).  Write 1-3 questions about each reading at the end of each assignment for class discussion and/or to clarify issues that you are confused about.  Think (and write) about what each article can tell us about  British perspectives on the American Revolution.

Week One
Read and write about the following articles.  Come prepared for class discussion.
1.  “The Age of George III,” in The Age of Aristocracy, 1688 to 1830 by William Willcox and Walter Arnstein.
2. “Manly Dominions: War and Empire, 1689-1793,” in Gender and Power in Britain, 1640-1990, by Susan Kent.
3.  “The Making of British Foreign Policy,” in British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution, by H. M. Scott.
4. “The Legacies of the ‘American Army,’” in Redcoats: the British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763, by Steven Brumwell.
5. “Peripheries,” in Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, by Linda Colley.
6. “The Nation Abroad: The Atlantic Debate Over Colonial Taxation,” in The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of Revolution, by Eliga Gould.

Week Two
Read and write about the following articles.  Come prepared for class discussion.
7.  “The Crisis of American Independence,” in An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean, by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy.
8.  Parliamentary Debates, in The Debate on the American Revolution, 1761-1783, ed. by Max Beloff.
9.  “Patriot’s Apogee: Wilkite Radicalism and the Cult of Resistance, 1763-1774,” in The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785, by Kathleen Wilson.
10.  “The Loss of America,” in Wars and Revolutions: Britain 1760-1815, by Ian Christie.
11.  “‘The Friends of America’: British Sympathy with the American Revolution,” by H.T. Dickinson, in Radicalism and Revolution in Britain, 1775-1848, ed. by Michael T. Davis.
12. “Civil War,” in British Politics and the American Revolution, by Charles Ritcheson.
13.  “Loyalty versus Opposition in London, 1775-1778,” in Disaffected Patriots: London Supporters of Revolutionary America, by John Sainsbury.

Week Three
Read and write about the following articles.  Come prepared for class discussion.
14.  “Surrender at Saratoga,” in Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes, by Christopher Hibbert.
15.  “Military Disaster,” in The American Revolution and the British Press, 1775-1783, by Solomon Lutnick.
16.  “Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne Opens His Campaign: Summer 1777,” in Rebels and Redcoats, by George Scheer and Hugh Rankin.
17.   “Except in Parliament: January 1778-June 1778,” in Iron Tears: America’s Battle for Freedom, Britain’s Quagmire: 1775-1783, by Stanley Weintraub.
18.  “Religious Reform and Religious Reaction,” in The British Isles and the War of American Independence, by Stephen Conway.
19. “The Impact of the War on the British Isles,” in The War of American Independence, 1775-1783, by Stephen Conway.

(See Featured Sites for Summer 2010 Trip)