Event

A Great and Happy People

In our 2017 season finale of our A Great and Happy People series, American Civic Forum looks at the long and complex story of how the United States came to be. The American Revolution was, after all, not as quick or clear-cut as many of us in alive in the 21st century think it was: It was part civil war among Englishmen, part colonial uprising against the Crown, part trade war between Londons establishment and the Colonies entrepreneurs, and part proxy war between the eras great superpowers of France and Britain.

More than a war, the Revolution was a fundamental transformation of U.S. societyone not sparked by political institutions or battlefield wins, but by a radical new philosophy unleashed by the Enlightenment. As much as the American Revolution was a victory of political innovation and military tenacity, it was the beginning of a profound and altogether new chapter in Western history. It was the Revolutions strange and majestic new social contract, steeped in the ideals of the Enlightenment, that forever changed what bound American citizens to their governmentand to one another.

Learn more at https://americancivicforum.org/project/a-great-and-happy-people/independence-and-enlightenment/