This event, originally titled ‘How the World Made the American Revolution’, took place on 9 July 2026. The information below is correct as of the publication date.
Sarah Pearsall in conversation with Tom Holland, co-host of The Rest is History.
Marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, The Eccles Institute for the Americas presented a conversation between Tom Holland, co-host of Podcast of the Year 2025, The Rest is History, and American historian, Sarah Pearsall, Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.
Sarah Pearsall’s ground-breaking new book, Freedom Round the Globe: How the World Made the American Revolution, boldly reframes this pivotal period in history, going beyond how the Revolution transformed the wider world, to examine how global events and individuals shaped the Revolution itself. From Kolkata in India, to Anomabu in Ghana and Bkejwanong in Canada, her research uncovers surprising figures – leaders, diplomats, traders, mothers, and communities – whose actions influenced the course of events in North America.
Together, Tom and Sarah delved into these global stories, the research behind them, and how they reshape our understanding of a world in motion at the birth of a new nation.
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Speaker Bios:
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, translator and broadcaster. His most recent book, Pax, covers the heyday of the Roman Empire. He has translated Herodotus and Suetonius for Penguin Classics. He is co-presenter of the world’s most popular history podcast, The Rest is History, which in 2025 was Apple’s Podcast of the Year. He has written and presented several TV documentaries, on subjects ranging from the Islamic State to dinosaurs. He is a trustee of the British Library and the British Museum, an honorary fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge, a lay canon of Salisbury Cathedral, the Bede Librarian at Durham Cathedral, and has been described in The Times as 'a leading English cricketer'.
Sarah M.S. Pearsall is a Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Educated at Yale, Cambridge, and Harvard, she is an award-winning author of Atlantic Families and Polygamy: An Early American History. Formerly a longtime faculty member at Cambridge, her acclaimed scholarship on gender and family has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the British Academy.
About the Eccles Institute for the Americas and Oceania:
Founded in 1991, the Institute builds, curates and preserves the Library's Americas and Oceania collections and champions knowledge and understanding of these regions through its wide-ranging fellowships and awards, cultural events, research training, programmes for schools and collection guides.
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