The World in Time

Holger Hoock

Friday, January 19, 2018

Representation du feu terrible a Nouvelle Yorck, c. 1778, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Illustration of the September 19, 1776, fire in New York, c. 1778. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

“For over two centuries, this topic has been subject to whitewashing and selective remembering and forgetting,” historian Holger Hoock writes. He is referring to the American Revolution, a war sanitized by sentimentality and historical distance but about as bloody as other moments in the past with a “Revolution” appended to its name. The facts Hoock cites are relentless: “More than ten times as many Americans died, per capita, in the Revolutionary War as in World War I, and nearly five times as many as in World War II. The death rate among Revolutionary-era prisoners of war was the highest in American history. In addition, at least 20,000 British and thousands more American Loyalist, Native American, German, and French lives were lost. The Revolution exacted further human sacrifice when at war’s end approximately one in forty Americans went into permanent exile, the equivalent of some 7.5 million today.” In May 2017, Hoock spoke with Lewis Lapham about his research on the Revolutionary War at an event at the New York Public Library. Listen to their conversation above.

 

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Holger Hoock, author of Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth.

 

Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this podcast has been provided by Elizabeth “Lisette” Prince. Additional support was provided by James J. “Jimmy” Coleman Jr.

Discussed in this episode

Scars of Independence: America's Violent Birth

More Podcasts

January 29, 2021

The World in Time:

Michael J. Sandel

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? More

March 18, 2022

The World in Time:

Oliver Milman

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World. More

Roundel with allegorical scene of book burning, North Netherlandish, c. 1520.

September 03, 2021

The World in Time:

Eric Berkowitz

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West, from the Ancients to Fake News. More

December 07, 2018

The World in Time:

Joseph J. Ellis

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Dialogue: The Founders and Us. More

Ancient Rome

November 24, 2017

The World in Time:

Adrian Goldsworthy

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Adrian Goldsworthy, author of Pax Romana: War, Peace, and Conquest in the Roman World. More

May 15, 2017

The World in Time:

William Hogeland

Lewis Lapham talks with William Hogeland about the creation of the United States’ first standing army and its victory over a coalition of Indian forces that sought to halt the country’s expansion. More