The Revolutionary Transformation of Early America

3 credits

CNST_DEM-2100

Constitutional Democracy
College of Arts and Science

(same as HIST 2100). In the broadest of terms, this is a course on origins. On one hand, we will devote significant class time to discussing “the causes which impelled” the colonies to throw off the yoke of British rule. We will examine this on both a practical and a more abstract level, focusing first on writings that delineate why colonists grew to perceive the economic, social, and political conditions of British rule as insufferable, and then on how they translated these practical concerns into a more ideological justification of violent revolution.