Dr. Patrick Griffin, 'The American Revolution and Global Empire'
About this episode
This episode features a conversation with historian Patrick Griffin about the American Revolution and its implications for American civic life and identity.
“Whether we like it or not, the American Revolution is kind of central to the idea of American civic life, and very central to American notions of sense of self. So, that's critical—and it has been that way consistently, really, since the time of the American Revolution itself, until this very day.” This episode features a conversation with historian Patrick Griffin, a scholar whose research traverses histories of revolution, empire, migration, adaptation, and colonial violence across early America (17th & 18th centuries) and the wider Atlantic world. Presenting in Michaelmas term ( 10 November 2025), Griffin's seminar paper examined the American Revolution as part of a connected age of political transformation, tracing these tensions through the life and career of Charles Cornwallis. "The past is a complex space, and we are drawn to draw things in white and black. But I think my work consistently (maybe frustratingly so) draws us to the grey, to kind of the in-between-space, when imperfect people in the past are trying to do what they can to manage unstable contexts". At the University of Notre Dame, Patrick Griffin is the Madden-Hennebry Professor of History and Director of…
People in this episode
Guest: Patrick Griffin
Topics covered
- American Revolution
- global empire
- political transformation
- colonial violence
- migration
- historical adaptation
Keywords
- American Revolution
- Patrick Griffin
- colonial history
- political transformation
- Atlantic world
- Charles Cornwallis
- migration
- empire
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: University of Notre Dame, Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, Yale University Press
Books & works: The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World
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