Andrew O’Shaughnessy is the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He is the author of An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000) and The Men Who Lost America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). He is a co-editor of Old World, New World. America and Europe in the Age of Jefferson (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010) and a co-editor of the Jeffersonian America series published by the University of Virginia Press.
The American Revolutionary War was a war Britain seemingly should have won. Its failure is popularly blamed upon the incompetence of the political and military leaders who have consequently become objects of satire. This is particularly true of portrayals in the movies and media which of course have a greater impact on perceptions than books. […]
