The American Revolution marked the beginning of an age of democratic revolutions that swept over France and challenged the old order throughout the Atlantic world. The French officers who served in the American War of Independence, whether as idealistic volunteers or resolute soldiers of their king, remembered the experience for the rest of their lives. […]
Watch live online as Professor John Hardman presents the 2019 George Rogers Clark lecture on King Louis XVI’s decision to support the American War for Independence. Louis, he argues, was a highly educated ruler who, though indecisive, possessed sharp political insight and a talent for foreign policy. Why did the king choose war? Could France have taken […]
Christy Pichichero, associate professor at George Mason University and the 2015 Tyree-Lamb Fellow of the American Revolution Institute, discusses her work on war and the Enlightenment in the context of French experiences during the American Revolution. French officers such as the marquis de Chastellux and the comte de Rochambeau—whose memoirs are a part of the […]
At the beginning of World War I, young Americans rushed to France as volunteers to defend America’s oldest ally. The Lafayette Escadrille, the only all-American squadron in the French Air Service, is the subject of a new documentary film co-directed by Paul Glenshaw. Following the film screening, Glenshaw will comment on the production, including presenting the […]
The upheaval and violence of the French Revolution threatened the lives of aristocratic officers of the Revolutionary War and colored their memories of the revolution in America. Julia Osman, associate professor of history and director of the Institute for the Humanities at Mississippi State University as well as our 2009 Tyree-Lamb Fellow, discusses her work […]