Module 2: The Bourgeois Revolutions
Our approach towards the American Revolution will primarily seek to explain the coincidence of increased white freedom and black slavery. We’ll search for the roots of 1776 in settler colonialism and chattel slavery in order to complicate the connection between American independence and progressive change. Ultimately, we’ll discuss the ways the American Counterrevolution continues to structure our racial caste system.
Required Reading
"The Counter-Revolution of 1776” from The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America by Gerald Horne
Recommended Reading
“The Emancipation of America, Part I” and “Part II” from The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 by David Brion Davis