220093 Entangled Revolutions: The U.S., France and Haiti, 1775-1804 (S) (SoSe 2026)

What triggered the American War of Independence in 1775, and how did it influence the French Revolution of 1789? What effects did these revolutions have on France's Caribbean colonies built on slave labor, especially Saint Domingue (now Haiti), which became the first Afro-Caribbean-led republic after its independence struggle (1791–1804)? This seminar examines these interconnected upheavals in North America, the Caribbean, and Europe during the “Age of Revolutions.”

Using research literature and selected primary sources, you will develop social, intellectual, and political historical perspectives on the revolutionary events in the Americas and Europe at the end of the 18th century.

This course is connected to the seminar of the same name (course no. …) and is best taken together as a module block course.

Requirements for participation, required level

Good command of written and spoken English to be able to read and discuss the course literature and primary source texts

Bibliography

Andress, David: Atlantic Entanglements: Comparing the French and American Revolutions, in: Forrest, Alan I./ Middell, Matthias: The Routledge Companion of the French Revolution in World History, London, Routledge, 2016.
Desan, Suzanne, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson. The French Revolution in global perspective. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013.
Israel, Jonathan: The Expanding Blaze - How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775-1848, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2017.
Middell, Matthias: The French Revolution in the Global World of the Eighteenth Century, In: Forrest, Alan I/ Middell, Matthias (ed.): The Routledge Companion of the French Revolution in World History, New York, Routledge, 2016.
Scott, Julius Sherrard, and Marcus Rediker. The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution. London; New York: Verso, 2018.