Worlds of Revolution: America250 as a Global Historical Event – Prof. Sarah Pearsall (November 11, 2026)

How the World Made the American Revolution

This event will take place on Wednesday, November 11, 2026 at 5:00pm in the Mortara Center for International Studies.

Attendance is free but registration is required:

Registration link will be available shortly.

“America250: Worlds of Revolution” is a part of the Georgetown University Global Humanities Faculty Seminar Series, co-sponsored by the Global Irish Studies Initiative, the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement, the Department of History, and the Mortara Center for International Studies.

When people consider the international aspects of the American Revolution, they usually think mainly about its effects on the world. This lecture, like the book from which it comes, instead examines how the world—from Native American leaders to South Asian protestors to West African children to Irish printers—helped to make the American Revolution. On Veterans’ Day in particular, it is right to remember the sacrifices of the thousands seeking liberty who fought—and sometimes died—in the complicated global war that created the United States.    

About the speaker

Sarah Pearsall is a Professor & Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University.

Professor Pearsall’s work has included scholarship and teaching that explores how transatlantic and global movements shape the personal and intimate lives of early Americans. Her work focuses on the connections between political events and everyday experiences, including marriage, family, gender, and correspondence. Her fourth book, Freedom Round the Globe: A World History of the American Revolution, published in 2026, examines how global events and individuals influenced the American Revolution rather than focusing solely on the Revolution’s impact abroad. Drawing on people and places ranging from Bkejwanong to Kolkata and Anomabu, the book grew out of a course she developed at Cambridge University before moving to Johns Hopkins University.

Pearsall’s broader research includes Polygamy: An Early American History (2019), which examines marriage, colonialism, slavery, gender, race, religion, and cultural encounters, and Polygamy: A Very Short Introduction (2022), which places these themes within a broader global history. Her first book, Atlantic Families: Lives and Letters in the Later Eighteenth Century (2008), similarly connects political history with personal lives during the American Revolution. Her scholarship has appeared in major historical journals and has received several awards and fellowships, while her research has been supported by institutions including the NEH, British Library, Newberry Library, British Academy, and Huntington Library. She is a Fellow of the Historical Society (UK) and serves on several editorial boards.