Adam Smith and Kevin Weddle

Historians Professor Adam Smith and Professor Kevin Weddle discuss two of the most famous battles in American history, Saratoga and Gettysburg, and explain how they helped to define US history.

Smith is Edward Orsborn Professor of US Politics and Political History at Oxford University and director of the Rothermere American Institute. In Gettysburg, he explains how the battle became the most famous in the US civil war and one of the most consequential battles in world history. The three-day battle took place in July 1863 and is widely seen as a turning point in the war. It also played a big role in ending slavery. Smith says Lincoln hoped victory would bring a ‘new birth of freedom’, and the history of the battle has been shaped by what exactly that means.

Weddle is professor of military theory and strategy at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and served in the US army for 28 years. In The Compleat Victory, he provides the most authoritative history of the Battle of Saratoga to date. He explains how the outcome of the American War of Independence was hanging in the balance in late 1777. British forces seemed poised to break the American rebellion. Weddle explains how the Americans stunned the world by conjuring up a victory that included the surrender of British forces.