Alan Taylor on Revolutionary Ironies and the Continental Civil War
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2024
⏱️ 57 minutes
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Summary
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Alan Taylor is Tyler’s pick for one of the greatest living historians. His many books cover the early American Republic, American westward expansion, the War of 1812, Virginian slavery, Thomas Jefferson, the revolutionary settlements in Maine, and more. He’s currently the Thomas Jefferson Chair of History at the University of Virginia.
Tyler and Taylor take a walking tour of early history through North America covering the decisions, and ripples of those decisions, that shaped revolution and independence, including why Canada didn’t join the American revolution, why American in turn never invaded Canada (and who would’ve won), American’s early obsession with the collapse of the Republic, how democratic the Jacksonians were, Texas/Mexico tensions over escaped African American slaves, America’s refusal to recognize Cuban independence, how many American Tories went north post-revolution, Napoleon III’s war with Mexico, why the US Government considered attacking Canada after the Civil War, and much more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.
Recorded May 9th, 2024.
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Photo Credit: (c) Dan Addison UVA University Communications
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercadus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:09.0 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. |
| 0:13.0 | Learn more at Merkatus.org. |
| 0:16.0 | For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, |
| 0:20.0 | visit Conversations with Tyler.com. |
| 0:24.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. |
| 0:31.0 | Today I'm chatting with Alan Taylor, who is professor of history at the University of Virginia. |
| 0:36.7 | He could plausibly be considered America's greatest living historian. |
| 0:41.6 | He's written numerous books on colonial America, Native Americans, the revolutionary |
| 0:47.2 | period, the early now mid and partly latter part of the 19th century. He is one of only very few people to have won two Pulitzer |
| 0:56.8 | prizes. Let me stress the new book, publication date May 21st, is American Civil Wars, a continental history 1850 to 1873. |
| 1:08.2 | I enjoyed reading this very much, learned a great deal from it. |
| 1:11.7 | Alan, welcome. |
| 1:13.0 | Well, thank you, Tyler. |
| 1:14.0 | I really appreciate having a chance to talk with you. |
| 1:17.0 | Let's start with the revolutionary period. |
| 1:19.0 | We will work up to the topics in your book. |
| 1:21.0 | But initially, why did only the 13 colonies declare |
| 1:24.8 | independence? So there's this thing we later call Canada to the north. |
| 1:28.4 | Why aren't they part of this? Well it's also all these British colonies in the West Indies like |
| 1:34.4 | Jamaican Antigua and Barbados. If you look at the population figures, the |
| 1:40.4 | places that rebel are the places that have the largest populations and they're connected with each other |
... |
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