Examine the American Revolution as a constitutional conflict over sovereignty, representation, rights, and self-government, from Britain’s imperial crisis through independence, confederation, constitutional reform, and the Revolution’s contested legacy.
Explain how rival understandings of parliamentary sovereignty, colonial representation, natural rights, and local self-government drove the imperial crisis.
Analyze how legislation, organized protest, newspapers, competing testimony, and public argument shaped colonial resistance and interpretations of events such as the Boston Massacre and Tea Party.
Trace the transition from constitutional protest and economic resistance to armed conflict, a Continental Army, and Congress’s declaration of independence.
Evaluate how leadership, logistics, battlefield strategy, foreign alliances, and diplomacy contributed to American victory and the peace settlement.
Compare the constitutional ideas and public roles of Samuel Adams, John Adams, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison across resistance, war, government, and political controversy.
Assess the Confederation’s design and limitations, Federalist and Anti-Federalist arguments over constitutional reform, and the Revolution’s uneven domestic and international consequences.
This course interprets the American Revolution as an escalating constitutional dispute rooted in the diverse institutions of Britain’s North American colonies and transformed by postwar taxation, enforcement, and competing theories of sovereignty. It traces how controversies over representation, property, juries, military power, and local government moved from protest and propaganda to armed resistance and independence. Biographical studies of Samuel Adams, John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison illuminate the ideas, leadership choices, and political tensions that shaped the Revolution. The course also follows the war’s strategic development, including Saratoga, French intervention, the southern campaigns, Yorktown, and the peace settlement. It concludes by examining the Articles of Confederation, arguments for and against the Constitution, and the Revolution’s uneven political, social, religious, economic, and international consequences.
Professor of History · Western Connecticut State University
Kevin R. C. Gutzman is a historian and constitutional scholar specializing in the American Revolution, the early republic, Jefferson, Madison, and constitutional history.
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