The American Revolution is often told as a national story. Yet it was also part of a series of world events which culminated in a global age of imperial crisis lasting from the 1760s through the 1820s. That crisis was simultaneously intellectual, cultural, political, social, and economic. In some places, established empires lost power. In others, new empires took shape. In the Americas, Asia, Europe, and elsewhere local forces demanded change. Was the American Revolution paradigmatic? Did the age of global imperial crisis have a center?

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The University of Chicago, the University of Hong Kong and the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society will hold a conference at the University of Hong Kong on 12-14 March 2026 on the theme, “Global 1776.” We invite contributions on any aspect of this age of imperial crisis. Scholars may propose papers or panels, with a range of methodologies and themes. We are especially interested in work that focuses on peoples and places that have received less attention from scholars of the Revolutionary era, especially Asia, India, West Africa, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Ireland, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Work that crosses imperial and historiographic boundaries and uses comparisons or connections to put the American Revolution in broader dialogue is especially welcome. 

 Topics may include, but are not limited to:

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• Causes and consequences of revolution

• Loyalism, Royalism, and other forms of counter-revolution

• Empire and imperial governance

• Slave trade, slavery, other systems of coerced labor

• Antislavery activism and self-liberation

• Women, children, and families

• Changing gender ideologies

• East India Companies

• Commerce and global trade

• Ideological and intellectual intersections with the global imperial crisis

• Enlightenment influences

• Political economy

• The transition to capitalism

• The rise of nation states

• The effect of global empire on metropolitan life and society

• Material and print culture

• The environment

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Submit proposals for papers or panels by email to global76@hku.hk or through the link below.

 

Provide a 250-word abstract for each paper and a c.v. for each participant. If you are submitting a panel, also send a file indicating the panel name and the names and authors of each panel paper.