April
17
Ep. 0058: The American Revolution, Part I: 1763-1774
Since this April is the 240th anniversary of the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, CJ has decided to do a multi-part Dangerous History Podcast series on this conflict, trying to focus as much as possible on the dangerous parts of the story, and the deeper implications of it, that the Man would rather omit from the narrative.
Join CJ as he discusses:
- The state of affairs in the aftermath of the Seven Years War (aka French & Indian War)
- The various ways the British government attempted to increase their tax revenues from the North American colonies, and the resulting resistance from some of the colonists
- A look at the average, grassroots insurgents, including who they were and what motivated them
- The little-known False Alarm incident of September 1774, in which a rumor spread throughout the northeastern colonies that the British Navy had destroyed Boston, and the resulting spontaneous mobilization of thousands of New Englanders to get revenge, which was aborted when the rumor proved false, but which showed how quickly ordinary people could and would mobilize
You’re absolutely correct regarding specifically who Henry was addressing, of course, and I should’ve known better. (I suspect part of my brain did know better, but not the part driving my mouth at that moment.)
I’m actually very familiar with both Paul Revere’s Ride by Fischer and the Appleseed program.
Next episode will include Lexington & Concord in it, though my version here will be a bit shorter than what you typically get at Appleseed, because I’m going to fit it into an episode also containing lots of other highlights from the year 1775.
Prof CJ,
Was delighted that you have delved into the “guts” of the Revolutionary War. I have been waiting for this ever since you started! I have already listened to this and the successive episodes several times and will undoubtedly listen to them several more! I commend you on your presentation despite the Zinn observance because like him or not, he does merit a passing glance for his opinion.
Sorry to hear of your cancelled class(es) and family troubles. How few is too few? Does it pay for the electricity and your time? Take care and as always I look forward to your podcasts.
Sincerely,
Kimberly
Hi Kimberly,
Glad you’re enjoying this series.
What happened was I had 1 class cancelled; I was originally scheduled to do 3 this summer term and one was clipped for not having enough students in it. That one was an “overload” — we get paid our base salary for teaching a standard load (usually 5 courses in spring & fall, and 2 in summer), and then we get some extra pay for courses we teach above that. Like many of my colleagues at my school, I teach a fair amount of overloads to make ends meet because we’ve gotten almost no raises in the last 5 or 6 years (despite inflation making the cost of living go up during that time), so the only way to give ourselves a “raise” is to pile on extra classes. So I’ll still get my base salary through the summer, but it will be probably $700+ less per month than if that class hadn’t been cancelled — not enough to make me homeless quite yet, but enough to feel in the family budget. The fact that one of my daughters recently had some health issues (thankfully it didn’t end up being life threatening, but it was enough to require one trip to the hospital and several trips to different doctors and different tests) hasn’t helped the finances.
I’m happy to spend my extra time from the cancelled class on the podcast because I want to continue building it and making it better and better, but that all does take a lot of time and a fair amount of resources. Hence my pitch in the most recent episode for ‘extra generosity if possible’ from listeners. Several new donors have already sent in donations since I released that episode, and I’m very grateful to them, and of course to all of my regular donors (like you) as well.
-CJ
Do you have transcripts to any of your podcasts?
Thanks!
Nope, sorry.
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