Introducing Worlds Turned Upside Down

Introducing Worlds Turned Upside Down, a podcast about the history of the American Revolution. Coming fall 2023 from R2 Studios. Learn more at www.r2studios.org.

Worlds Turned Upside Down tells the story of the American Revolution as a transatlantic crisis and imperial civil war through the lives of people who experienced it. For many modern citizens of the United States, “the cause of America” that gave birth to a new nation in 1776 and the heroic stories we tell ourselves about its founding remains “in great measure the cause of all mankind.”

But for the people who lived through it, the revolutionary era upended their lives in ways they could have never imagined. The crisis that engulfed the Atlantic world in the late eighteenth century inspired British Americans, Indigenous nations, enslaved Africans and African Americans, Europeans, and other peoples to question their loyalties, challenge authority, seek freedom, and resist revolutionary change.

Narrated by Jim Ambuske.

Transcript

Worlds Turned Upside Down
Teaser Trailer

Published July 12, 2023

[Music Begins]

JIM AMBUSKE: You think you know the history of the American Revolution.

ANNE FERTIG (Abigail Adams): “the decisive Day is come on which the fate of America depends”

AMBUSKE: Think Again.

MILLS KELLY (Thomas Jefferson): "We might have been a free & great people together."

AMBER PELHAM (Phillis Wheatley): "No more, America, in mournful strain, Of wrongs, and grievance unredress'd complain."

BRANDON TACHCO (Joseph Brandt): "The Disturbances in America give great trouble to all our Nations."

NATE SLEETER (George III): “Many of Our Subjects in….Our Colonies and Plantations in North America, misled by dangerous and ill-designing Men, ……have at length proceeded to an open and avowed Rebellion."

ALISON LANGFORD (Ann Hulton): “Government is exterminated and it is quite a state of anarchy."

DOUGLAS MACRAE (William Franklin): "You have now pointed out to you…two Roads -- one…leading to Peace, Happiness and a Restoration of the public Tranquility -- the other inevitably conducting you to Anarchy, Misery, and all the Horrors of a Civil War."

SLEETER (George III): "[B]lows must decide whether they are subject to this country or independent."

AMBUSKE: I’m Jim Ambuske, and this is Worlds Turned Upside Down, a podcast on the history of the American Revolution. Coming this fall from R2 Studios. Subscribe wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Learn more at R2studios.org.

[Music Ends]

Music Credits:

Matthias Förster, Conquerors - Instrumental Version via Artlist.io.