The Birth of the Modern Republic: France, America and Haiti

MARCH 23, 2026 · 1 HOUR 10 MINUTES · HISTORY OF IDEAS CLUB · REVOLUTION OF THOUGHT

How did the American, French and Haitian Revolutions turn republican theory into competing projects of rights, sovereignty and political inclusion?

Episode summary

The late eighteenth-century revolutions transformed republicanism from a historical inheritance into a modern political programme. This seminar compares the American, French and Haitian experiences, asking how each connected popular sovereignty to constitutional government and universal claims about rights.

The comparison also exposes the limits of revolutionary universality. Slavery, empire, property and racial exclusion forced the new republics to confront who counted as a citizen and whether the language of liberty could survive its own contradictions.

Episode guide

• Classical republican inheritance and popular sovereignty
• The American Revolution and constitutional government
• The French Revolution, rights and political rupture
• Haiti, emancipation and the limits of revolutionary universalism

Sources and further reading

• The Federalist Papers (1787-1788).
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789).
• The Haitian Constitution of 1805.
• Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World (2004).

Transcript

A full transcript is in preparation. This page provides an accessible summary and episode guide in the meantime.

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