Author Archives: Matthew Pinsker

Not every student in a course like History 117 realizes that they are entering a political battleground. Party factions and interest groups have always lobbied to influence the way the national past gets taught, but this fight has erupted again … Continue reading →

Who declared American Independence?  The answer is not quite as simple as it appears.  Gordon Wood relates how some observers remarked later that Sam Adams of Boston had at least decided on independence as early as 1768, following enactment of the Townshend … Continue reading →

In his short book on The American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood offers a series of powerful insights about the nature of the British Empire in the eighteenth century.  First, it was about much more than the so-called thirteen colonies along the … Continue reading →

Thanksgiving myths?  Say it ain’t so!  Yet in History 117, students are reading a handful of short, insightful essays by Edward O’Donnell and Charles Mann that help situate the traditional story of Thanksgiving into a more complicated narrative borne in the shadows … Continue reading →

George Washington famously appeared at the Second Continental Congress in his old Virginia militia uniform from the French & Indian War.  His appearance sent a radical message –Washington was ready for a fight by the spring of 1775.  Washington’s feisty … Continue reading →