The Seven Years' War was fought in America, in Europe, and in Asia. It was in fact a world war that grew out of the competing imperial ambitions and strategies of two leading powers and their allies. Although many students will have some knowledge of Fort Duquesne and Fort Necessity, of Braddock and Washington, understanding of events and persons will grow when they are placed in a larger context. A lecture on the Seven Years' War as a conflict of empires will be a significant benefit. See Ralph Davis, The Rise of the Atlantic Economies (1973); William J. Eccles, France in America (1972); James Lang, Conquest and Commerce: Spain and England in America (1975); and Alan Rogers, Empire and Liberty: American Resistance to British Authority, 1755-1763 (1974).

Virtually all students will have some acquaintance with the United States Constitution and with the idea that a constitution forms the basis for orderly government. An unwritten constitution is another matter altogether and to many Americans may seem almost an oxymoron. What is the British unwritten constitution? How did it develop? How did the powers of Parliament grow? What is common law? Understanding will lead to a better grasp of the conflict between the British and the Americans and, later, of the American legal structure. See Jack P. Greene, Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Politics of the British Empire and the United States, 1607-1788 (1986). See also William Stubbs and James Cornford, editors, The Constitutional History of England (second edition; 1979).

In Concord, Massachusetts, stands Daniel Chester French's statue The Minute Man. It has become an American icon, a symbol of patriotism. Ceremonies take place each April 19--called Patriots' Day in Massachusetts--and wreaths are laid at The Minute Man's feet. The battles of Lexington and Concord have in more than two centuries become part of a mythic American past. What happened at the two battles? What role did Paul Revere really play? A lecture on these initial engagements of the American Revolution will be powerfully dramatic. See Arthur B. Tourtellot, Lexington and Concord (1963), and David Hackett Fisher, Paul Revere's Ride (1994).

The instructor may also wish to consider a pair of lectures that ultimately will become the basis for a class discussion. You might adopt a vigorously "patriot" stance in a summary lecture on the causes of the American Revolution, emphasizing repression of traditional liberties and imposition of unreasonable taxes. You might then invite a "guest," perhaps another historian, to offer a similar summary lecture, but from the British point of view, emphasizing the unfair burden that the colonists wanted to impose on the people of Great Britain. A subsequent class discussion can deal with the contrasting viewpoints presented in the two lectures. Lawrence Henry Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution, 1763-1775 (1954), is particularly clear on the British position. Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776 (1972), traces the growth of popular hostility. See also Don Cook, How England Lost the American Colonies, 1760-1785 (1996).