The Eastwick Press Newspaper

Eastern Rensselaer County's Community Newspaper

WCNY Welcomes Award-Winning Author For July 17 Lecture

By

Dr. Andrew O’Shaughnessy, author of the award-winning The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire, will speak at the Hoosick Falls Junior/Senior High School Sunday July 17 at 2 pm, located at 21187 NY 22, Hoosick Falls.
The free public presentation is sponsored by WCNY, Central New York’s public broadcasting organization headquartered in Syracuse, New York.
RevWarLecture-OShaughnessyweb[private]O’Shaughnessy is the Vice President of Monticello, the Saunders Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Professor of History at the University of Virginia. The Men Who Lost America has won eight national awards including the George Washington Book Prize and the New York Historical Society Book Prize for American History. He will highlight the Saratoga Campaign and the role of British General John Burgoyne, who led troops against American soldiers at the Bennington and Fort Ann battlefields.
The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders must have been to blame, but were they? Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men, including Burgoyne, who directed the British dimension of the war, O’Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons the patriots were able to achieve their surprising victory.
WCNY is producing a documentary on American Revolution battlefields in New York State including the Bennington and Fort Ann sites. Following the presentation, attendees will be invited to offer their comments and opinions about the advantages and disadvantages of preserving battlefields in their communities. The feedback will become part of the documentary, slated to air on public television in the fall of 2016.
The documentary and Dr. O’Shaughnessy’s presentation are funded by a grant from the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program.[/private]