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NNK 250 Speaker Series featuring Dr. Phil Levy

The Declaration of Independence has been called "American scripture." The Constitution certainly has its celebrators, but there is a unique reverence reserved for the document that Americans see as the nation’s birth announcement. The Declaration’s elegant prose, and resonant list of complaints represent the melding of English thought and colonial experiences in the years after the Seven Years War. It is all too easy though to keep the Declaration in its protected glass case and not see it as it was seen and reacted to at the time of its drafting. This talk looks at the implications of the Declaration’s critique of the empire and how it was received by a country already at war for its independence and in states (former colonies) that had been busy declaring their own independence well before July 4th.