The Author’s Corner with Gerald Horne

Here is our first installment of “The Author’s Corner,” our new series  in which we interview authors of new and forthcoming books in American history.  Enjoy. –John

Gerald Horne is a Professor of United States History at the University of Houston. This interview is based on his new book, The Counter Revolution of 1776: Slavery Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America (NYU Press forthcoming, April 2014)

JF: What led you to write The Counter Revolution of 1776?

JH: I was dissatisfied with the traditional narrative of the origins of the USA and my research for my previous book–Negro Comrades of the Crown: African-Americans & the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation, NYU Press, 2014–convinced me that the traditional narrative was little more than a “creation myth.”

JF: In 2 sentences, what is the argument of The Counter Revolution of 1776?

JH: Slavery was at the heat of the founding of this “republic”, along with the ability of enslaved Africans to align with Spain, France and indigenous nations against London and British settlers.

JF: Why do we need to read The Counter Revolution of 1776?

RECOMMENDED READING

LONG FORM: Frederick Douglass and the Challenge of Seeing Clearly On the slaveholder Jonathan Edwards and the Christians who read him Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center just released the summer issue of its journal “Reclaiming 1776.” Let’s take a look. 1776 returns to Broadway and it’s a little different from the 1969 production