18th Century

18th Century, 19th Century, Collection Essays

Living in British Colonial India, 1750–1850

Why did British imperialism take the form it did in India? How did this change the lives of colonial servants in India? Why did individual Britons go to India? What did they expect to find there? What common experiences did they have?

newberry
October 29, 2015

18th Century, 19th Century, Collection Essays

Other Americans and the American Revolution

Who identified as “American” during the Revolution? To what extent did the American Revolution serve the interests of all inhabitants of the emerging nation?

newberry
September 22, 2014

16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, Collection Essays

The French Colonial Empire, 1500-1800

Why did France’s empire expand to so many parts of the world in the early modern period? How did its expansion shape the history of the United States, Canada, Haiti, and other modern-day countries?

newberry
September 14, 2014

16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, Collection Essays

The World of Don Quixote

How did Cervantes’ Don Quixote respond to the social conditions and literary traditions of early modern Spain?

newberry
October 23, 2013

17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Collection Essays

Mapping Chicago and the Midwest, 1688–1906

How do maps tell the early history of Chicago and the Midwest? How have maps been used by different empires and nations to secure control of the region?

newberry
October 22, 2013

16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, Collection Essays

Maps and the Beginnings of Colonial North America

What can maps tell us about how people from different times, places, and cultures make sense of their world? How did maps and mapmaking influence the development of colonial North America?

newberry
September 1, 2013

18th Century, Collection Essays

Subject to Citizen, Kingdom to Nation: Changing Notions of Identity in the Age of the French Revolution

How did French people bring about—or resist—the transition from monarchy to republic during the Revolution? What did it mean to become a citizen of the new nation?

newberry
February 26, 2013

18th Century, 19th Century, Collection Essays

Representing the American Revolution, 1768–1893

How did people interpret the events of the American Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? How did the meaning of the Revolution change over time? In what ways has the Revolution meant different things to different people at any given time?

newberry
December 6, 2012

18th Century, Collection Essays

Olaudah Equiano and the Eighteenth-Century Debate over Africa and the Slave Trade

What arguments did eighteenth-century writers make about the slave trade? How are these arguments based in understandings of African civilization? How does Olaudah Equiano contribute to these debates?

newberry
October 22, 2012

16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, Collection Essays

Shakespeare’s Romans: Politics and Ethics in Julius Caesar and Coriolanus

What is the context for Shakespeare’s Roman plays? What were his sources? Why did classical Rome capture the interest of people in Renaissance England?

newberry
October 17, 2012

18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Collection Essays

Anti-Statism in U.S. History

What reasons do writers and politicians give for protesting the authority of the federal government? Why do they perceive the State as a threat? How has anti-statist thought changed over time?

newberry
June 26, 2012

17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, Collection Essays

Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Utopias of the European Renaissance

What is the historical and literary context for Shakespeare’s representation of Prospero’s island and its inhabitants? How did Renaissance writers and artists portray the European exploration of the Americas? How did that exploration inspire their visions of an ideal society?

newberry
May 14, 2012