Review of the Broadway musical Hamilton, now playing at the Richard Rodgers Theater on 46th Street in New York City. Let me confess at the outset that I’m not a movie, television, or Broadway critic. I’m a trained academic historian, and most of my publications have focused on the era of the American Revolution. In […]
TURИ, the AMC cable network series that recently finished the 10th episode of its initial season, has been renewed for a second season of ten more episodes. Before the season aired, Michael Schellhammer, who screened the first three episodes, wrote a generally positive review of the series that referred to it as “a fascinating look […]
I love footnotes. I won’t read a historical article if it does not have proper footnotes; why waste my time? When thumbing a book and contemplating a purchase I thumb from the back. The book must have an index[1] and it must have footnotes.[2] If there is no index or no foot/endnotes then I lay […]
Danger, secrets, intrigue and revenge were all part of the Culper spy ring, and the new AMC series “Turn,” premiering April 6 (Sundays 9/8 central), offers a fascinating look into how these intrepid American spies helped win the Revolutionary War. AMC provided Journal of the American Revolution an early screening of the first three episodes. […]
By 1768, Pennsylvania political activist John Dickinson became a true triple threat. He was already one of the most successful lawyers and businessmen in all of Pennsylvania and Delaware, and was the author of the “Letter from a Farmer” essays, one of the most widely admired and reprinted political pamphlets of the decade. And that […]
Millions of people have become entranced by the new FOX show, Sleepy Hollow. It has mystery, intrigue, and, above all else, a loveable cast of characters. Turning Washington Irving’s tale of Ichabod Crane into a woven narrative of apocalypticism and American History is downright brilliant (don’t think we missed the little jab at this with […]
The DVD, “Von Steuben’s Continentals: The First American Army,” is a great introduction to the life of the American soldier during the Revolutionary War. The video joins the Continental Army in 1779 at an unnamed camp in the Hudson Highlands. A narrator, played by one of the DVD’s creators, John D. Pagano, summarizes the experiences […]
In January I made a list of the 10 best, in my opinion, Revolutionary War films. I neglected to include a film that deserves to be in the top half of that list; Mary Silliman’s War. This 1994 film is based on the true story of Mary Silliman and her husband, General Gold Selleck Silliman […]
