The 250th anniversary celebrations for American independence are massive. Historian, James R. Fichter examines China’s connection to these events through the beverage of tea, a focus of protest in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and the focus of Fichter’s recent book, Tea: Consumption, Politics and Revolution, 1773-1776 (Cornell: 2023). Here, Fichter reveals the tea boycotts and copy-cat tea protests emerging from the Boston Tea Party, events which shaped the path to American independence.
This is a contrarian story, revealing that tea survived major events like the Tea Party and that British colonists struggled to join and remain part of the ensuing boycotts. The rebels’ Congress prohibited tea, judging it a symbol of British misrule, but months before declaring independence Congress ended this prohibition, reasoning that the ban was too widely violated to enforce. Even in the heat of revolution, in the struggle between whether consumer politics was about consumption or politics, consumer desire won out.
The Speaker
James R. Fichter is an historian, author, and Professor of Global and Atlantic Studies at the University of Hong Kong. He specializes in Atlantic, maritime and international history and the connections between early America, the British Empire, and the world.
His recent book, Tea: Consumption, Politics, and Revolution, 1773-1776 (Cornell, 2023), reveals the hidden history of the so-called Boston Tea Party. He is also the author of So Great a Proffit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism (Harvard, 2010). He looks forward to completing a monograph on how the Suez Canal interlinked the British and French empires in Asia.
More about James: https://jamesfichter.com/
Programme
Time: 7:00 - 8:00 pm (Reception starts at 6:30 pm)
Admission: $175 for members, $220 for guests /non-members (Light refreshments are included in the admission fee)
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