New+Nation+Unit



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This set of images, set to the music of the era, sets the tone for the era we are on the point of studying: the mid-18th century. The black and white of the "old" 17th century gives way to the high technology and vibrant color of the art of the 18th century -- this should help us to transition from colonial to proto-American history of 1750-1780.

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Yes, the 17th century – and the colonial unit – is behind us. No more religion and sitting on our butts growing the callouses while worrying about the status of our souls. No more wars of religion and the neverending “catholic versus protestant.” Now we are in the more colorful and “enlightened” period of the 17th century. We have replaced counterpoint and complexity with melody – we have moved from old fashioned 17th century black and white with 18th century color and beauty, as can be shown by this brief video of Franz Joseph Haydn’s music. The age of Mozart and Washington, Franklin and Sir Isaac Newton – the “Enlightenment” and “classical music”!

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This lecture sets the stage for the showdown between France and Great Britain and their empires - it explains the mercantilist thinking of European powers and their drive to put their colonies to work for the mother country with trade regulations. It explains the alternating neglect and attention that Imperial Great Britain gave to Her Colonies, and it explains the conflicts that would only become more grave between how metropolitan London saw reality versus how the colonists saw it on the ground on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

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The great war for empire between France and England in the mid-18th century is the subject of this lecture. In particular, the focus is on the tensions and misunderstandings between colonials and the metropolitan authorities in London, and how these tensions were going to become more rather than less important over time. Irony is examined in the fact that precisely when the English were triumphant in the Treaty of 1763, the road to the American Revolution begins in earnest.

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Enjoying de facto independence, colonists on the New York frontier in 1757 were unused to governmental interference in their affairs. They had mostly never seen an English soldier or tax collector representing King and Parliament, and their world was a very local one with a mix of European and Native American cultures. That changed with the erection of French forts along the Ohio River Valley in the mid-18th century and the coming of the French and Indian War, as this scene from “The Last of the Mohicans” illustrates well...

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The duel between the French and English empires in the 18th century saw mostly England as the victor – as the most powerful country in the world. This piece of music was written by George Frederick Handel for the royal barge when King George was transported up and down the Thames River. Handel’s “water music” – and its majesty and pomp, its tone and timber – encapsulates well the United Kingdom which defeated France in a world war by 1763 and then clumsily imposed taxes and other controls on its North American colonies, starting the road which ended in the American Revolution.

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This looks at Benjamin Franklin as the figure of the Enlightenment and compares and contrasts his forward-looking, optimistic outlook with the traditional, religious outlooks of Jonathan Edwards and others. This lecture underscores the importance of the Franklin scientific outlook, coupled with a dream of being able to rise in society and improve this world, as opposed to focusing so much on the next world.

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This lecture explains the road from protest to revolution -- the events leading to opening of hostilities. This deals with both the political and ideological problems that neither colonials nor English were able to resolve: the stamp act through the Boston Tea Party.

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“Tar and feathering” has a quaint reputation in the popular memory, but there is nothing quaint about this violent treatment visited upon English tax collectors, as is shown in this video clip sporting no less than the personages of Sam and John Adams, and John Hancock. The political theater of these “sons of liberty” was the extreme edge of colonial disaffection from English taxes, but there were other moderate Patriots unengaged in violent action balanced out by the undecided and then substantial “Loyalist” support for the English crown and its policies. The American Revolution was less a America vs. England war and more a civil war between “Loyalists” and “Patriots” (or “Tories” vs. “Whigs”) within the English empire.

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This lecture shows the other side of the question with respect to Benjamin Franklin's ideological assumptions about the nature of man and the nature of reason. Franklin has been called the "only man in the 18th century without a subconscious," and his critics and many and fierce. We will look at those who focus on the irrational and unconscious in human behavior, as well as romantics such as D.H. Lawrence who see the world in different shades than Franklin.

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We look at the three main general causes of the American Revolution: the crisis in the imperial federation, sociopolitical factors, and the "real Whig" ideology. There are larger causes that -- together with the more prosaic taxes, riots, controversy, and finally bloodshed -- resulted in the American revolution and independence of many colonies.

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This lecture treats with General Gage's decision to issue soldiers to search for weapons and Patriot leaders in the small New England townships of Lexington and Concord, the subsequent fighting, and the Battle of Breed's Hill. We look at the dramatic events on that April morning outside of Boston, and looks at its grave significance in the long-term movement from 1763 that results in a call for independence in 1776 and wins it through war by 1783.

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On the Friday morning of June 16, 1775, anyone within a few miles of Boston would have woken up to the sound of the Royal Navy bombarding Breed's Hill, at the opening salvos of what would become the Battle of Bunker Hill. This war would be one that would be fought among the American people, and they would see the destruction and death with their own eyes -- the women and children, too.

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It is hard to describe it in words, but one often recognizes "leadership" when one sees it, as does John Adams here in this video clip.

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This lecture covers the progression of the fighting in the American Revolutionary War from Congress giving George Washington his commission through the Battle of Yorktown. Covered are the advantages and disadvantages of the Continental versus regular British armed forces, as well as the earlier battles to Saratoga to the final bitter fighting in the South.

media type="custom" key="11175566" This School House Rock video shows the Revolutionary War in a perspective fit for third graders... but it is entertaining, no?

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The "Continental" armies of the new "united States" under generals George Washington or Horatio Gates flattered themselves to call their “farmers with guns” to be “soldiers.” Especially at the outset of the war, they were more a group of beginners getting the pants beat off them by the professional British forces arrayed against them. But that changes, as we have seen and discussed, over time. By Yorktown the scene would be much changed, and the whole world would be "turned upside down"…

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This lecture explains the decision by the Second Continental Congress in 1776 to form a committee to draft a declaration of independence from Great Britain and its author, Thomas Jefferson. We look at the revision process and the documents adoption, as well as what it technically is as a legal text - and why it is important to later generations of Americans.

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The "Continental" armies of the new "united States" under generals George Washington or Horatio Gates flattered themselves to call their “farmers with guns” to be “soldiers.” Especially at the outset of the war, they were more a group of beginners getting the pants beat off them by the professional British forces arrayed against them. But that changes, as we have seen and discussed, over time. By Yorktown the scene would be much changed, and the whole world would be "turned upside down"…

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After all the toil and sacrifice of the war, such Founding Fathers like Alexander Hamilton look forward to making this new country -- the "united States of America" -- function well. But with factors both favoring and discouraging national union, it is all yet to be seen. In 1783 there is almost no real "national" heritage in America. "Localism" is the reality.

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This lecture treats with the pros and cons over whether the united States of America will endure as on political body or not - as well as the changed nature of the American political and social landscape in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War.

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This PowerPoint lecture explains the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Articles of Confederation and the 'critical period' between the end of the Revolutionary War and Shay's Rebellion and calls for a constitutional convention.

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By 1787 many Americans saw a sense of crisis under what they saw as the "ineffectual" Articles of Confederation. In 1776 it was considered that government was "bad" and the people "good." But after Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, and the printing of paper money to cause inflation to cancel out debts at the state level, there is seen a need to have more central authority to protect property and order. Maybe the "people" are not so good after all, and maybe government is not always "bad"?

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This PowerPoint lecture deals with the circumstances surrounding the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the culture of that group of men, the stresses and forces at play, the plans put forth, the compromises hammered out, and the polemical role of slavery in it.

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We examine the concept of effective versus ineffective writing, using as examples "The Declaration of Independence" and Tom Paine's "Common Sense."

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This PowerPoint lecture deals with the aftermath of the Constitutional Convention and the emerging political struggle between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, their positions and tactics, and the consequent ratifications debates and votes - along with the compromises - ie. Bill of Rights - therein and the final vote.

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The political dogfight over whether to ratify the new Federal Constitution was bitter and hard-fought on both sides. No punches were pulled. No favor or opportunity to gain influence went unused. To a disinterested observer, the years 1787-1788 presaged contention and disunity in the fragile USA. What would come next?

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The "Federalists" went to work with almost brutal efficiency to gain passage of their Constitution. Rapid-fire they wrote often brilliantly effective propaganda pieces for the newspapers ("The Federalist Papers") and were everywhere present to out-debate and out-hustle their opponents.

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By 1787 many Americans saw a sense of crisis under what they saw as the "ineffectual" Articles of Confederation. In 1776 it was considered that government was "bad" and the people "good." But after Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, and the printing of paper money to cause inflation to cancel out debts at the state level, there is seen a need to have more central authority to protect property and order. Maybe the "people" are not so good after all, and maybe government is not always "bad"?

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After all the toil and sacrifice of the war, such Founding Fathers like Alexander Hamilton look forward to making this new country -- the "united States of America" -- function well. But with factors both favoring and discouraging national union, it is all yet to be seen. In 1783 there is almost no real "national" heritage in America. "Localism" is the reality.

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In an emotional moment after independence had been won through war, the first United States ambassador to Great Britain John Adams was received by King George III on June 1, 1785. There was a frosty formality yet the attempt to put past bitterness and rancor behind them, and the British might be excused for wondering if the Americans would regret leaving monarchy behind and attempting a republic.

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An incredibly biased and mono-dimensional explication of early American history, you still have to smile watching the Schoolhouse Rock videos such as this one. Nonsense history, superb entertainment.