American Revolution
by Yale University
To subscribe to an iTunes U course, click View in iTunes.
Course Description
The American Revolution entailed some remarkable transformations--converting British colonists into American revolutionaries, and a cluster of colonies into a confederation of states with a common cause--but it was far more complex and enduring then the fighting of a war. As John Adams put it, "The Revolution was in the Minds of the people... before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington"--and it continued long past America's victory at Yorktown. This course will examine the Revolution from this broad perspective, tracing the participants' shifting sense of themselves as British subjects, colonial settlers, revolutionaries, and Americans.
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Spring 2010.
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Spring 2010.
| Name | Description | Time | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01 - Introduction - Freeman's Top Five Tips for Studying the American Revolution | Professor Freeman offers an introduction to the course, summarizing the readings and discussing the course's main goals. | 40:22 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 2 | Introduction: Freeman's Top Five Tips for Studying the Revolution - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 3 | 02 - Being a British Colonist | Professor Freeman discusses what it meant to be a British colonist in America in the eighteenth century. | 39:29 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 4 | Being a British Colonist - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 5 | 03 - Being a British American | Professor Freeman discusses the differences between society in the American colonies and society in Britain in the eighteenth century. | 40:14 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 6 | Being a British American - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 7 | 04 - "Ever at Variance and Foolishly Jealous": Intercolonial Relations | Professor Freeman discusses colonial attempts to unite before the 1760s and the ways in which regional distrust and localism complicated matters. | 41:38 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 8 | "Ever at Variance and Foolishly Jealous": Intercolonial Relations - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 9 | 05 - Outraged Colonials: The Stamp Act Crisis | Professor Freeman concludes her discussion (from the previous lecture) of the three early instances in which the American colonies joined together to form a union. | 41:09 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 10 | Outraged Colonials: The Stamp Act Crisis - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 11 | 06 - Resistance or Rebellion? (Or, What the Heck is Happening in Boston?) | Professor Freeman discusses the mounting tensions between the colonists and the British in the late 1760s and early 1770s. | 46:43 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 12 | Resistance or Rebellion (Or "What the Heck is Happening in Boston?") - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 13 | 07 - Being a Revolutionary | Professor Freeman continues her discussion of the Boston Massacre and how it represented a growing sense of alienation between the American colonists and the British authorities. | 46:04 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 14 | Being a Revolutionary - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 15 | 08 - The Logic of Resistance | Professor Freeman lays out the logic of American resistance to British imperial policy during the 1770s. | 47:44 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 16 | Logic of Resistance - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 17 | 09 - Who Were the Loyalists? | The lecture first concludes the discussion of the First Continental Congress, which met in 1774. | 45:50 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 18 | Who Were the Loyalists? - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 19 | 10 - Common Sense | This lecture focuses on the best-selling pamphlet of the American Revolution: Thomas Paine's Common Sense, discussing Paine's life and the events that led him to write his pamphlet. | 43:08 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 20 | Common Sense - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 21 | Common Sense | Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775 – 76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. In clear, simple language it explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence. | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 22 | 11 - Independence | In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses the Declaration of Independence and sets the document in its historical context. | 41:55 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 23 | Independence - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 24 | 12 - Civil War | Professor Freeman concludes the discussion of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was widely circulated and read aloud throughout the colonies. | 43:29 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 25 | Civil War - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 26 | The Minutemen and Their World | Winner of the Bancroft Prize The Minutemen and Their World, first published in 1976, is reissued now in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a new Foreword by Alan Taylor and a new Afterword by the author. On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The "shot heard round the world" catapulted this sleepy New England town into the midst of revolutionary fervor, and Concord went on to become the intellectual capital of the new republic. The town--future home to Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne--soon came to symbolize devotion to liberty, intellectual freedom, and the stubborn integrity of rural life. In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place, and a compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement. | -- | $9.99 | View in iTunes |
| 27 | 13 - Organizing a War | In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses four difficulties that the Continental Congress faced in organizing the colonial war effort. | 49:00 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 28 | Organizing a War - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 29 | 14 - Heroes and Villains | In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses Benedict Arnold as a case study of the ways in which ideas about regionalism, social rank, and gender - and the realities of the Continental Congress and the Continental Army - played out in this period. | 48:58 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 30 | Heroes and Villains - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 31 | 15 - Citizens and Choices: Experiencing the Revolution in New Haven | To show how Americans experienced the war, Professor Freeman offers a spur-of-the-moment lecture on New Haven during the Revolution, discussing how Yale College students and New Haven townspeople gradually became caught up in the war. | 42:59 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 32 | Experiencing the Revolution in New Haven - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 33 | 16 - The Importance of George Washington | This lecture focuses on George Washington and the combined qualities that made him a key figure in Revolutionary America. | 44:39 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 34 | The Importance of George Washington - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 35 | 17 - The Logic of a Campaign (or, How in the World Did We Win?) | In this lecture, Professor Freeman explains the logic behind American and British military strategy during the early phases of the Revolution. | 46:49 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 36 | The Logic of a Campaign (or "How in the World Did We Win?") - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 37 | 18 - Fighting the Revolution: The Big Picture | Today's lecture concludes Professor Freeman's discussion of the four phases of the Revolutionary War. America's victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 marked the end of the third phase of the war, and led to a turning point in the conflict. | 46:13 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 38 | Fighting the Revolution: The Big Picture - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 39 | 19 - War and Society | In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses the experiences of African Americans, women, and Native Americans during the Revolution, framing her discussion within a larger historical debate over whether or not the Revolution was "radical." | 43:19 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 40 | War and Society - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 41 | 20 - Confederation | This lecture discusses the ongoing political experimentation involved in creating new constitutions for the new American states. | 43:25 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 42 | Confederation - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 43 | 21 - A Union Without Power | In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses the Articles of Confederation. Although they seem hopelessly weak in the long view of history, the Articles made perfect sense as a first stab at a national government. | 47:04 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 44 | A Union Without Power - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 45 | 22 - The Road to the Constitutional Convention | In this lecture, Professor Freeman discusses how the new nation moved towards creating a stronger, more centralized national government than the Articles of Confederation. | 44:20 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 46 | The Road to the Constitutional Convention - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 47 | 23 - Creating a Constitution | Professor Freeman discusses the debate over the Constitution at the Federal Convention of 1787 - a convention that by no means had an inevitable outcome. | 45:59 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 48 | Creating a Constitution - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 49 | The Radicalism of the American Revolution | In a grand and immemsely readable synthesis of historical, political, cultural, and economic analysis, a prize-winning historian depicts much more than a break with England. He gives readers a revolution that transformed an almost feudal society into a democratic one, whose emerging realities sometimes baffled and disappointed its founding fathers. From the Trade Paperback edition. | -- | $13.99 | View in iTunes |
| 50 | 24 - Creating a Nation | Professor Freeman discusses the national debate over the proposed Constitution, arguing that in many ways, when Americans debated its ratification, they were debating the consequences and meaning of the Revolution. | 40:55 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 51 | Creating a Nation - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 52 | The Federalist Papers | The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 53 | 25 - Being an American: The Legacy of the Revolution | Professor Freeman discusses when we can consider a revolution to have ended, arguing that a revolution is finally complete when a new political regime gains general acceptance throughout society. | 41:18 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 54 | Being an American: The Legacy of the Revolution - Transcript | -- | -- | Free | View in iTunes |
| 55 | Faces of Revolution | Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Bernard Bailyn brings us a book that combines portraits of American revolutionaries with a deft exploration of the ideas that moved them and still shape our society today. | -- | $13.99 | View in iTunes |
| 55 Items |
Customer Reviews
Follow along!
This is my first iTunes U course and I am really excited, mostly because the instructor conveys that in her lectures. Great material!
Fantastic
This course is fantastic! The instructor keeps you focused and entertained throughout the lectures. I highly recommend checking it out 👍
I love this professor
She is full of energy. You can tell that she enjoys the topic and her job. She makes learning about history fun. I look forward to the next lecture.


Discover and share
new apps.
Follow us on @AppStore.
Discover and share new music, movies, TV, books, and more.
Follow us @iTunes and discover
new iTunes Radio Stations
and the music we love.