The American Revolution and the Creation of American History

Fraunces Tavern Museum

In this lecture, recorded April 1, 2021, Michael Hattem discusses his book Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution. Between the 1760s and 1800s, Americans stopped thinking of the British past as their own history and created a new historical tradition that would form the foundation of what future generations would think of as "American history." This process, Hattem argues, played a critical role in the founding of the nation.