UCL History is delighted to welcome Professor Eliga Gould (University of New Hampshire) for the 2026 Commonwealth Fund Lecture, to be held on Thursday 2 July 2026 at 5.30pm in the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, University College London.

In this lecture, Professor Gould will examine the political and intellectual legacy of the American Revolution’s origins as an act of armed resistance. Beginning with the events of 1775, he will explore how the revolution’s rebellious beginnings shaped subsequent debates about legitimacy, sovereignty, and citizenship in the United States and across the Atlantic world.

Professor Gould is one of the leading historians of the American Revolution and the early modern Atlantic. His scholarship has transformed understanding of the Revolution’s international dimensions and of the place of North America within wider imperial and global histories. His current work reconsiders the Treaty of Paris and the revolutionary settlement through the lenses of slavery, Native sovereignty, and settler colonialism.

The lecture forms part of the international conference After 1776: Settlers, Slavery, and Citizenship in the Atlantic Republics, hosted by UCL History on 2–3 July 2026.

The event is free and open to all, but registration is required.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/events/2026/jul/commonwealth-fund-lecture