“France’s help for the United States has long been part of Americans’ knowledge of the American Revolution, but the French king decided to enter the war because of France’s opposition to Britain more than any love for the Americans – after all, he was a king with his own empire,” she says. Wait! I know France helped the colonists beat the British redcoats, but what does India have to do with this? And even then, a “world war?” In 2018, Smithsonian Books published “The American Revolution: A World War,” a collection of essays from 17 authors from eight countries that gives “a multifaceted but coherent account of the American Revolution’s international geopolitics,” according to a review in the Journal of American History.ĭuVal and others say two key protagonists of the Revolutionary War – Britain and France – actually fought the final battle of the conflict in Cuddalore, India, in June of 1783. “But in just the past decade or two, historians have broadened their focus and started to write about the Revolutionary War as being, as you say, a world war,” DuVal says. The focus was almost all on Massachusetts and Virginia,” she says. “Americans and almost all historians of the United States until just recently focused almost exclusively on the Revolutionary War within the 13 colonies that rebelled against the British.

Listen to Kathleen DuVal, professor of history at the University of North Carolina (one of the 13 original states, just saying). They’ll say the correct response should have been, “What is Asia?” At least that’s what a growing number of historians will tell you. If you said “What is North America?” and wagered your entire pot, you’ve lost. The answer is: The last battle of America’s war of independence was fought on this continent.Ĭue the familiar music, and write down your response. Final Jeopardy category: the American Revolutionary War.

French navy ship in war of 1812