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The Men Who Lost America
Resume![The scene of the surrender of the British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga, on October 17, 1777, was a turning point in the American Revolutionary War that prevented the British from dividing New England from the rest of the colonies. (John Trumbull)](https://wordpress.wbur.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Surrender_of_General_Burgoyne-1000x661.jpg)
For the American colonists, it was a stunning triumph, a victory of ideological revolutionaries and flinty farmers against the most powerful empire on earth.
For the British, however, the American revolution was a stunning loss — a war of failed occupation, an empire stretched too far, a poorly executed war of choice and folly. If it sounds like there are some echoes with modern military history, that's because there are.
Guests
Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello and Professor of History at the University of Virginia. His new book is The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire.
More
Check out this video of the fictional General Cornwallis from The Patriot.
http://youtu.be/dehB246v3pM
This segment aired on July 4, 2013.