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Entry 176 of 240War

The American Revolution

1776 CE/North America/Thirteen Colonies
Today The thirteen colonies (eastern United States)Span American Revolution · 1775–1783

Thirteen British colonies broke away to found a republic on a radical claim — that legitimate power flows from the consent of the governed, not from a king or God. Their success turned an Enlightenment idea into a working government and lit a fuse under every monarchy watching. It is a founding case of a legitimating narrative collapsing: the divine and imperial right to rule giving way to popular consent, an idea Europe was about to test far more violently.

◆ Worth knowingThe revolution's ideals were penned largely by men who enslaved other people — a contradiction the writer Samuel Johnson skewered at the time: 'How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?'
◆ The mechanismLegitimating-narrative collapse

The story that justifies an order (divine right, mandate, ideology) loses credibility; the order it propped up follows.

Also: Ideological movement · Revolution from hardship

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