Dr. Patrick Griffin, 'The American Revolution and Global Empire'

“Whether we like it or not, the American Revolution is kind of central to the idea of American civic life, and very central to American notions of sense of self. So, that's critical—and it has been that way consistently, really, since the time of the American Revolution itself, until this very day.”

This episode features a conversation with historian Patrick Griffin, a scholar whose research traverses histories of revolution, empire, migration, adaptation, and colonial violence across early America (17th & 18th centuries) and the wider Atlantic world.

Presenting in Michaelmas term (10 November 2025), Griffin's seminar paper examined the American Revolution as part of a connected age of political transformation, tracing these tensions through the life and career of Charles Cornwallis.

"The past is a complex space, and we are drawn to draw things in white and black. But I think my work consistently (maybe frustratingly so) draws us to the grey, to kind of the in-between-space, when imperfect people in the past are trying to do what they can to manage unstable contexts".

At the University of Notre Dame, Patrick Griffin is the Madden-Hennebry Professor of History and Director of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies. He is also a Bye-Fellow at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

See recently published book by Patrick Griffin: 'The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World' (Yale University Press, 2023).

Thank you to our guest, and thank you for listening!

Co-hosts

Shea Hendry — History PhD Candidate, Hughes Hall

Shea’s research examines the children of Loyalist refugees who embodied both American citizenship and British subjecthood—concurrently and consecutively—throughout the Early National period.

Megan Renoir — History PhD Candidate, Homerton College

Megan’s research examines the history of U.S. land institutions, nineteenth- and twentieth-century federal Indian policy, and violence against the NCRNT. Her work expands our understanding of the relationships between federalism, Western property institutions, and intractable land conflicts.

Production by Daisy Semmler, US History MPhil, Fitzwilliam College (2025).