Hosted by Civic Spirit

As the semiquincentennial of America’s independence approaches, all of us have a chance to reflect on the creation of the United States. But in 2023, we also observe the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a famous evening of property destruction that touched off the events that led to American Independence. Our nation has had debates in recent years about 1619, 1776, and whose stories we ought to teach. This We the People talk will explore the rich possibilities for understanding the history of the American Revolution, the broad possibilities for storytelling, and the mixed legacy of the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution in our own times.

On Zoom: Register here!

Benjamin L. Carp is the Daniel M. Lyons Professor of American History at Brooklyn College and teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution (2023). He previously wrote Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (2010), which won the triennial Society of the Cincinnati Cox Book Prize in 2013; and Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution (2007). With Richard D. Brown, he co-edited Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution, 1760-1791: Documents and Essays, 3rd ed. (2014). He has written about nationalism, firefighters, Benjamin Franklin, and Quaker merchants in Charleston. He has also written for Colonial Williamsburg, the New York Daily News, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He previously taught at the University of Edinburgh and Tufts University.