Marjoleine Kars – författare

Colonial America's largest grassroots rebellion; Ten years before the start of the American Revolution, back-country settlers in the North Carolina Piedmont launched their own defiant bid for economic independence and political liberty. The Regulator Rebellion of 1766-71 pitted thousands of farmers, many of them religious radicals inspired by the Great Awakening, against political and economic elites who opposed the Regulators' proposed reforms. The conflict culminated on May 16, 1771, when a colonial militia defeated more than 2,000 armed farmers in a pitched battle near Hillsborough. At least 6,000 Regulators and sympathizers were forced to swear their allegiance to the government as the victorious troops undertook a punitive march through Regulator settlements. Seven farmers were hanged. Using sources that include diaries, church minutes, legal papers, and the richly detailed accounts of the Regulators themselves, Marjoleine Kars delves deeply into the world and ideology of free rural colonists. She examines the rebellion's economic, religious, and political roots and explores its legacy in North Carolina and beyond. The compelling story of the Regulator Rebellion reveals just how sharply elite and popular notions of independence differed on the eve of the Revolution.

The first volume delves into how the context of the American Revolution was set, taking readers across North America and the world to reveal the far-flung people, events, institutions, cultures, and ideas that led to its inception. Through a global lens, the volume shows how empires struggled with political and economic reforms, as well as popular protest, while competing and warring with each other. On a continental scale, long-term environmental and economic structures, native peoples, colonial settlers, and their interactions set the parameters for revolutionary conflict. Focusing on the thirteen colonies, -particularly groups who are traditionally overlooked- the essays shed light on the specific milieus in which the Revolution took place, examining and reinterpreting the iconic events leading up to independence and war. A mixture of broad topical essays and short innovative "viewpoints", together the essays question notions of American exceptionalism while emphasizing both change and continuity.

The third and final volume examines the American Revolution and its consequences, continuities, and legacies. Across thirty essays, ranging from broad, topical chapters to innovative, shorter 'viewpoints', the volume sheds light on how the American Revolution reverberated worldwide from the Constitution's ratification to twenty-first century cultural battles over the Revolution's meanings. Americans of all stripes adapted old rituals and structures to national independence, new rights, and republican politics, while enslaved and Indigenous peoples contended with the nation's intensification of the exploitation of humans and land. The Revolution's global shockwaves buffeted empires and the people who resisted them. From the eighteenth century to today, Americans and people across the world have contested how we remember the American Revolution.

The second volume focuses on the years of upheaval during the American Revolution between 1775 and 1789. It breaks new ground by surveying a wide range of internal conflicts in the thirteen colonies, the trauma of a bloody war and its consequences, as well as the continental, hemispheric, and global forces shaping warfare and politics in this era. Together, the essays expand our understanding of how various people navigated military occupation, community conflict, governmental paralysis, interpersonal relationships, institutional collapse, and the slipperiness of allegiances. Through sweeping interpretative essays and micro-history viewpoints, the volume highlights the interplay of class, race, and gender in a wartime context and how these dynamics played out and were influenced by broader geopolitical developments. The depths of division and grand possibilities are explored - and interrupt our long-standing notions of traditional linear narratives of nation-making in this era.

Winner of the Cundill History PrizeWinner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPRA breathtakingly original work of history that uncovers a massive enslaved persons' revolt that almost changed the face of the AmericasNamed one of the best books of the year by NPR, Blood on the River also won two of the highest honors for works of history, capturing both the Frederick Douglass Prize and the Cundill History Prize in 2021. A book with profound relevance for our own time, Blood on the River “fundamentally alters what we know about revolutionary change” according to Cundill Prize juror and NYU history professor Jennifer Morgan.On Sunday, February 27, 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice—in present-day Guyana—launched a rebellion that came amazingly close to succeeding. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this little-known revolution, one that almost changed the face of the Americas. Michael Ignatieff, chair of the Cundill Prize jury, declared that Blood on the River “tells a story so dramatic, so compelling that no reader will be able to put the book down.”Drawing on nine hundred interrogation transcripts collected by the Dutch when the rebellion collapsed, and which were subsequently buried in Dutch archives, historian Marjoleine Kars has constructed what Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Eric Foner calls “a gripping narrative that brings to life a forgotten world.”

THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BERBICE SLAVE REBELLION Winner of the 2021 Cundill History PrizeWinner of the 2021 Frederick Douglass Prize 'A gripping tale about the human need for freedom ... spellbinding' NPR'Impressively detailed ... Kars provokes the reader into seeing the many sides involved in this bloody and desperate struggle with empathy and pity ... excellent' Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho'A masterpiece ... a story for the ages' Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the WorldIn February 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion - and very nearly succeeded. For an entire year, they fought their enslavers, dreaming of establishing a free state, what would have been the first Black republic. Instead, they vanished from history.Blood on the River is the explosive story of this forgotten revolution, an event that almost changed the face of the Americas. Historian Marjoleine Kars draws on long-buried Dutch interrogation transcripts to reconstruct a rich day-by-day account of this extraordinary event, providing a rare look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution. An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery and the story of freedom in the New World.

THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BERBICE SLAVE REBELLION Winner of the 2021 Cundill History PrizeWinner of the 2021 Frederick Douglass Prize ''A gripping tale about the human need for freedom ... spellbinding'' NPR''Impressively detailed ... Kars provokes the reader into seeing the many sides involved in this bloody and desperate struggle with empathy and pity ... excellent'' Paterson Joseph, actor and author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho ''A masterpiece ... a story for the ages'' Elizabeth Fenn, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World In February 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion - and very nearly succeeded. For an entire year, they fought their enslavers, dreaming of establishing a free state, what would have been the first Black republic. Instead, they vanished from history.Blood on the River is the explosive story of this forgotten revolution, an event that almost changed the face of the Americas. Historian Marjoleine Kars draws on long-buried Dutch interrogation transcripts to reconstruct a rich day-by-day account of this extraordinary event, providing a rare look at the political vision of enslaved people at the dawn of the Age of Revolution. An astonishing original work of history, Blood on the River will change our understanding of revolutions, slavery and the story of freedom in the New World.