T.H. Breen investigates how supporters of the American Revolution, many of them living in small communities not directly affected by military campaigns, managed so successfully to sustain political and military resistance to Great Britain over eight years of war and more narrowly, how they created powerful structures of ideological control that effectively curtailed the possibility of a meaningful counter-revolution. Breen will present a paper entitled “Enforcing the Revolution,” which explores topics to be incorporated into his forthcoming book An Appeal to Heaven: The American Revolution. 

T.H. Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History Emeritus at Northwestern University and the James Marsh Professor at-large at the University of Vermont.  His recent writings have focused on the history of the American Revolution.  He has authored Marketplace of Revolution, American Insurgents: American Patriots, and George Washington’s Journey: The President Forges a New Nation, which was awarded the Society of Cincinnati Book award for 2016.  Breen has recently held the Rockefeller Fellowship at Colonial Williamsburg, a Humboldt Foundation Award at the Munich Center for Advanced Studies, and is currently the John Kluge Professor of American Law and Governance at the Library of Congress.

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the George Washington University History Department for their support.