Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America

The Revolutionary War is often celebrated as marking the birth of American republicanism, liberty, and representative democracy. Yet for the tens of thousands of British and Hessian troops sent 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to wage war under alien skies, such a progressive picture, as Vaughn Scribner reveals, could not have been further from the truth. In Under Alien Skies, Scribner illustrates how foreign soldiers' negative perceptions of the American environment merged with harsh wartime realities to elicit considerable physical, mental, and emotional anguish. Vaughn Scribner is an Associate Professor of British American history at the University of Central Arkansas. Registration info and more can be found here.