Its my pleasure to welcome today a professor Gregory Irwin of the revolution through world war ii. Its one of the great advantages of being in philadelphia that we can be close neighbors to professor irwin, whose work on the british army ands the American Revolution is extensive and nuanced and always inspiring of our exhibits and publications. In the development of our core exhibition, professor irwin played a crucial role in the display of the story of enslaved runaways weighing the promise of the proclamation announced by general clinton in 17 which offered somewhat vaguely protection and freedom of run aways who made their way to the british lines through consultation with a number of historians particularly of American History in this period. It became a really imperative that we do two very challenging, often seemingly contradictory things with showing and people facing this question of whether to trust the british on this promise. One was to demonstrate their agency to capture t
Military historian Gregory Erwin talks about challenges the british army faced in adapting to north american terrain and battle tactics during the revolutionary war. The museum of the American Revolution, Pritzker Museum and the richard vann has foundation cohosts this event as part of a threeday international conference. My name is philip mead, director of Curatorial Affairs on the American Revolution, and it is my pleasure to welcome today to welcome to welcome today ,resident Gregory Urwin professor of American History from the revolution through world war ii. A longtimerwin is friend of this museum project. Thene of it is one of great advantages of being in philadelphia, that we can be close neighbors to the professor, whose work on the british army in the American Revolution is extensive and always inspiring of our exhibits and publications , and the development of our core exhibition. Professor urwin played a crucial role in the display of the story weighinged runways, the promis
Todays lecture is going to be on military aspects of the revolutionary war in the north and south. Next week, when we have our guest speaker she will be talking about the western campaigns in more detail. There are other aspects of the war, financing the war, womens participation that we will not get to today that we will be leaving for future classes. I wanted to start by talking about one of the best recent books on the American Revolution called the men who lost america. He argues that british generals are described as incompetent, in decisive, but he argues that these were competitive men in the midst accomplished professionals, and the reason why they failed was not due to a character flaw, but because they faced insurmountable obstacles fighting a war in america. I will lay out some of those obstacles. The first thing is diplomacy. In the seven years war britain had allies. During the war for american independence they found themselves relatively alone, fighting france in 1778. S
Sits in a lecture with one of the Nations College professors. You can watch it next, Brooklyn College professor benjamin carp talks about the advantages and disadvantages for british and American Forces during the revolution. He describes how individual personalities, supplies, and timing influenced the outcomes. This class is one hour and 15 minutes. Benjamin hi, everybody. Todays lecture is going to be on military aspects of the revolutionary war in the north and south. Next week, when we have our guest speaker, she will be talking about the western campaigns in more detail. There are other aspects of the war, financing the war, womens participation that we will not get to today that we will be leaving for future classes. I wanted to start by talking about one of the best recent books on the American Revolution called the men who lost america. He argues that british generals are described as incompetent, in decisive, but he argues that these were competitive men in the midst of accom
And of course are on the revolutionary generation. Todays lecture is going to be on military aspects of the revolutionary war, mostly in the north and south. Next week, when we have our guest speaker she will talk about some of the western campaigns in more detail. We have that coming up. That will be exciting. There are other aspects of the war at home, financing the war womens participation in the war that we will not get to date today, but we will before future classes. I want to start by one of the best books on the revolution is a book called the men who lost america. In this book, it is argued that british generals are often described as incompetent or indecisive, but the author argues that they were smart competitive men accomplished professionals, military professionals, and the reason why they failed is not due to psychotic character fails, but because they faced insurmountable obstacles in trying to fight a war in america. I will lay out some of those obstacles, and they will