An 1850 painting by Emmanuel Leutze envisions the scene of George Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River by night, a military maneuver that has become symbolic of the American Revolution. (Painting: Emanuel Leutze.)
How the American Quest for Independence Fueled a Worldwide Movement
The Fourth of July 1776 marked a pivotal moment in the American Revolution, a revolt that kicked off a global “age of revolution” examined in a new book by USC Dornsife historian Nathan Perl-Rosenthal.
On July 4, Americans pull out the picnic blankets and blast off fireworks to celebrate the Declaration of Independence and the creation of the United States as a sovereign nation.
The American Revolution was the first in a series of political upheavals around the globe, from the late eighteenth century through the middle of the nineteenth, which shook monarchies and empires around the globe and began to replace them with representative governments.
This tumultuous era is the subject of a new book, The Age of Revolutions: And the Generations Who Made It (Basic Books, 2024) by Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, professor of history, French and Italian and law at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.