The Declaration of Independence: A Global History

conference by David ARMITAGE (Harvard University)

Thursday, November 12, 2009, 6pm-8pm,
Lombard room, 96 blvd Raspail, Paris

The Center for North American Studies at the EHESS will welcome David Armitage, Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University, and a specialist in intellectual and political history. He will give a presentation on his book The Declaration of Independence: A Global History, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2007, recently published in French as Du Nouveau Monde à l'Amérique d'Obama. Un empire contre nature, Nantes, L'Atalante, 2009.

The book provides a reinterpretation of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America from the perspective of global history. The author examines the influence of the American declaration on the broader international context, by considering its diffusion and reception in the world at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and the numerous declarations of independence which were proclaimed all over the world in the subsequent period. Focusing on the rights of states rather than individuals, he offers a new political interpretation of the American declaration and demonstrates that it was not a simple bill of rights, but a proclamation of sovereignty and independence.

The book will be commented on by:

• Romain Bertrand (CERI - IEP-Paris)
• Annick Lempérière (Université Paris 1 - MASCIPO)
• Marie-Jeanne Rossignol (Université Paris 7)
• Jean-Frédéric Schaub (EHESS)

presentation of David Armitage on the Harvard website

For more information, please contact us.