Author and Harvard Historian Maya Jasanoff to Explore the Stories of Loyalists, the Revolution’s “Losers”

Event Kicks Off New Season of “Read the Revolution” Speaker Series

The Museum of the American Revolution kicks off the third season of its popular Read the Revolution Speaker Series on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2019 at 6 p.m. with author and Harvard University historian Maya Jasanoff discussing her groundbreaking book Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. 

In Liberty’s Exiles (Knopf, 2011), Jasanoff revisits the story of how loyalists dispersed across the British empire, resulting in an enduring American influence on the wider British world. Called “a smart, deeply researched and elegantly written history” by The New York Times Book Review, this groundbreaking book offers the first global history of the loyalist exodus to Canada, the Caribbean, Sierra Leone, India, and beyond, and changes how we see the Revolution’s “losers” and their legacies.

“A masterful account of the dispersal of the loyalists…Jasanoff’s notable achievement is to engage the reader’s interest, and sympathies, in the travails of the Revolution’s losers. It will be thoroughly rewarding, even for the reader already familiar with the fates of the winners.” —The Boston Globe

Maya Jasanoff is the Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard. In addition to Liberty’s Exiles, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction and the George Washington Book Prize, she is the author of the prize-winning Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850 (2005) and The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World (Penguin Press, 2017), which examines the dynamics of modern globalization through the life and times of the novelist Joseph Conrad. A New York Times Notable Book of 2017, The Dawn Watch won the Cundill Prize in History, and was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize in Biography. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Jasanoff won the 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-Fiction. Her essays and reviews appear frequently in publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The New York Review of Books.

Jasanoff is currently working on a wide-ranging book about ancestry and inheritance in human history, and in 2020 will deliver the Lawrence Stone Lectures at Princeton University on connections between fiction and history-writing in English.

The Museum’s Read the Revolution Speaker Series brings celebrated authors and historians to the Museum for lively discussions of their work. The series is based on the Museum’s national Read the Revolution bi-monthly e-newsletter, which has more than 50,000 subscribers and features excerpts from thought-provoking books to inspire learning about the American Revolution.

Other events in the series include:

• Save the Date: Special Read the Revolution Book Event on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2019.
  The Museum is proud to be part of a major national book tour. Details to be announced August 19.
• T.H. Breen discussing The Will of the People: The Revolutionary Birth of America (Belknap Press, Sept. 2019) on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019
• Stephen Brumwell discussing Turncoat: Benedict Arnold and the Crisis of American Liberty (Yale University Press, May 2018) on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020
• Vincent Brown discussing Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Belknap Press, January 2020) on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020
• Caitlin Fitz discussing Our Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions (W.W. Norton, Liveright, 2016) on Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Tickets are $15 for Museum members beginning August 12. Tickets for non-members are $20 and go on sale August 19. Tickets for students/teachers/museum professionals (with ID) are $10 beginning August 19. Tickets do not include Museum admission. For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

About Museum of the American Revolution
The Museum of the American Revolution explores the dramatic, surprising story of the American Revolution through its unmatched collection of Revolutionary-era weapons, personal items, documents, and works of art. Immersive galleries, powerful theater experiences, and digital touchscreens bring to life the diverse array of people who created a new nation against incredible odds. Visitors gain a deeper appreciation for how this nation came to be and feel inspired to consider their role in the ongoing promise of the American Revolution. Located just steps away from Independence Hall, the Museum serves as a portal to the region’s many Revolutionary sites, sparking interest, providing context, and encouraging exploration. The Museum, which opened on April 19, 2017, is a private, non-profit, and non-partisan organization. For more information, visit www.AmRevMuseum.org or call 877.740.1776.