Harvard History: The Siege of Boston: A New Discovery - A Fireside Chat with Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy
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Join us for a virtual fireside chat with University of Virginia History Professor Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, former Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Thomas Jefferson Studies at Monticello, who will discuss his new archival discovery and reconsider the significance of the Siege of Boston as the first major British defeat of the war—an event that forced Britain to undertake the monumental task of attempting to reconquer America.
Read about Professor O'Shaughnessy's new archival discovery in the Washington Post:
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/17/burgoyne-journal-american-revolution-siege-boston/
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2026/american-revolution-siege-boston-george-washington/
About the Speaker
Andrew O’Shaughnessy is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Between 2003 and 2022, he served as Vice President of The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), and the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. His book The Men Who Lost America. British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) received eight national awards including the New York Historical Society American History Book Prize, the George Washington Book Prize, The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Excellence in American History Book Award and The Society of Military History Book Prize. He is also the author of An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000). His most recent book books are The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: Thomas Jefferson’s Idea of a University (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021) and, co-authored with Trevor Burnard, Republic and Empire: Crisis, Revolution, and America’s Early Independence to (New Haven: Yale University Press 2025). He is an editor of the Jeffersonian America series published by the University of Virginia Press. He coedited Old World, New World: America and Europe in the Age of Jefferson (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010) and The Founding of Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press: 2019), and The European Friends of the American Revolution (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2023).