Dr. Woody Holton
Associate Professor of History
(804) 289-8340
aholton@richmond.edu
Topic: History (Early American)
Why did the aristocratic owners of vast plantations start a revolution? In his provocative book, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, & The Making of the American Revolution in Virginia, Holton says that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.
Holton's book has received the Merle Curti Social History Award from the Organization of American Historians, and the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award from the New York Sons of the Revolution. He is currently writing another book on the origins of the U.S. Constitution. The working title is Minds Afire: Angry Farmers and the Origins of the United States Constitution.
For more information on Holton, please visit the Richmond Research Institute.