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Comparing Atlantic Revolutions

 Voltaire was on target: in the century that followed, revolutionary outbreaks punctuated the histories of three continents, with the influences and echoes even farther afiel

Beyond such direct connections, the various Atlantic revolutionaries shared a set of common ideas.

The Atlantic basin had become a world of intellectual and cultural exchange as well as one of commercial and biological intercourse.

Such ideas generated endless controversy.

Although women, slaves, Native Americans, and men without property did not gain much from these revolutions, the ideas that accompanied these upheavals gave them ammunition for the future.

 Beneath a common political vocabulary and broadly democratic character, the Atlantic revolutions differed substantially from one another

The North American Revolution, 1775-1787

Every schoolchild in the United States learns early that the American Revolution was a struggle for independence from oppressive British rule In its break with Britain, the American Revolution marked a decisive political change, but in other ways it was, strangely enough, a conservative movement, because it originated in an effort to preserve the existing liberties of the colonies rather than to create new ones

Thus the American Revolution did not grow out of social tensions within the colonies, but from a quite sudden and unexpected effort by the British government to tighten its control over the colonies and to extract more revenue from them.

What was revolutionary about the American experience was not so much the revolution itself but the kind of society that had already emerged within the colonies.

This widening of political participation gradually eroded the power of traditional gentlemen, but no women or people of color shared in these gains.

 Nonetheless, many American patriots felt passionately that they were creating “a new order for the ages. 

The French Revolution, 1789-1815

Act two in the drama of the Atlantic revolutions took place in France, beginning in 1789, although it was closely connected to Act One in North America

 In a desperate effort to raise taxes against the opposition of the privileged classes, the French king, Louis XVI, had called into session an ancient parliamentary body, the Estates General.

That revolution was quite different from its North American predecess

These social conflicts gave the French Revolution, especially during its first five years, a much more violent, far-reaching, and radical character than its American counterpart. 

In early 1793, King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were executed, an act of regicide that shocked traditionalists al across Europe and marked a new stage in revolutionary violence.

 Accompanying attacks on the old order were efforts to create a wholly new society, symbolized by a new calendar with the Year I n 1792, marking a fresh start for France.

The impact of the revolution was felt in many ways.

 More radical revolutionary leaders deliberately sought to convey a sense of new beginnings.

The French Revolution differed from the American Revolution also in the way its influence spread. Like many of the revolution’s ardent supporters, Napoleon was intent on spreading it benefits far and wide.