History Speaks, a series of author talks exploring America’s history and fight for nationhood, continues on Sunday, June 14, at 2:00PM with historian Richard Bell, author of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World. The free event, sponsored by Visit Hardy and WordPlay bookstore, will take place in the Family Life Center at Duffey Memorial Methodist Church, 100 N. Elm Street, in Moorefield.
In The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, Bell reveals the full breadth and depth of America’s founding event. The American Revolution was not only the colonies’ triumphant liberation from the rule of an overbearing England; it was also a cataclysm that pulled in participants from around the globe and threw the entire world order into chaos.
From the sugar fields of the Caribbean to the court of the King of Mysore, from refugee camps on the Canadian frontier to political uprisings in Sierra Leone and Peru, the war that gave birth to the United States was never simply America’s own. It was a seismic global event that redrew maps, toppled hierarchies, catalyzed migration, and accelerated new movements for liberty—and for empire. In his book, Bell traces the far-flung reverberations of the war through the lives of the people it displaced, empowered, or destroyed, exploring how the Revolution was a sprawling, high-stakes struggle fought on land and sea, shaped by commerce, diplomacy, propaganda, and contingency. The American Revolution and the Fate of the World offers a bold new framework for understanding the Revolutionary War: complex, global, and astonishingly relevant to the modern world.
Richard Bell is professor of history at the University of Maryland and author of the book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home, which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship.
Copies of The American Revolution and the Fate of the World can be purchased in advance at WordPlay, 50 West Main Street, in Wardensville. Books will also be available for purchase and signing at the June 14 event. For more information, email info@wordplaywv.com.
