The Franco-American Alliance 1778

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the treaties France entered into with the United States of America in 1778, to give open support to the USA in its revolutionary war against Britain and to promote French trade across the Atlantic. This alliance had profound consequences for all three. The French navy, in particular, played a decisive role in the Americans’ victory in their revolution, but the great cost of supporting this overseas war fell on French taxpayers, highlighting the need for reforms which in turn led to the French Revolution. Then, when France looked to its American ally for support in the new French revolutionary wars with Britain, Americans had to choose where their longer term interests lay, and they turned back from the France that had supported them to the Britain they had just been fighting, and France and the USA fell into undeclared war at sea.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Frank Cogliano 5 episodes
  Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh
• Kathleen Burk 11 episodes
  Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London
• Michael Rapport 2 episodes
  Reader in Modern European History at the University of Glasgow

Reading list

• A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism
  Carol Berkin (Basic Books, 2017) Google Books →
• Old World, New World: The Story of Britain and America
  Kathleen Burk (Abacus, 2009) Google Books →
• Revolutionary America 1763-1815: A Political History
  Francis D. Cogliano (Routledge, 2009) Google Books →
• The War of American Independence 1775-1783
  Stephen Conway (Edward Arnold, 1995) Google Books →
• If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy - from the Revolution to the War of 1812
  George C. Daughan (Basic Books, 2008) Google Books →
• A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution
  Jonathan R. Dull (Yale University Press, 1985) Google Books →
• When the United States Spoke French: Five Refugees Who Shaped a Nation
  Francois Furstenburg (Penguin, 2014) Google Books →
• William Pitt the Younger
  William Hague (HarperCollins, 2004) Google Books →
• The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence
  Richard B. Morris (Harper & Row, 1965) Google Books →
• Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution 1719-1787
  Orville T. Murphy (State University of New York Press, 1983) Google Books →
• Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution
  Joel Richard Paul (Penguin, 2010) Google Books →
• Rebel Cities: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution
  Mike Rapport (Little, Brown, 2017) Google Books →
• A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America
  Stacy Schiff (Henry Holt, 2006) Google Books →
• The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848
  Paul W. Schroeder (Clarendon Press, 1996) Google Books →
• John Jay: Founding Father
  Walter Stahr (Diversion Books, 2017) Google Books →
• Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815
  Gordon S. Wood (Oxford University Press, 2009) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m000v99n

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v99n

Auto-category: 900 (History & Geography)