Worlds Turned Upside Down

Season One of Worlds Turned Upside Down, "The Crisis," follows the stories of American colonists, Indigenous peoples, and Europeans as they grappled with the revolutionary consequences of Great Britain's victory in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). After celebrating Britain's triumph over the French in the war, Americans began questioning British new policies in its wake, while Indigenous and enslaved people struggled to make sense...

In the 1750s, tensions between the British, the French, and Indigenous peoples over control of the Ohio Country in North America lead to the outbreak of a global war with revolutionary consequences.

Featuring: Fred Anderson, Christian Ayne Crouch, Max Edelson, Patrick Griffin, George Ironstrack, and Maeve Kane.

Voice Actors: Norman Rodger,  Alexandre Rios-Bordes, and Emmanuel Dubois.

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

Find the official t...

Following the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in North America, the British and French begin mobilizing for war and appoint commanders-in-chief to lead the war effort, only to clash with colonists over how power, authority, and honor should be used in the colonies. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples like the Haudenosaunee and the Delaware weigh their options as the fighting engulfs eastern North America. 

Featuring: Fred Anderson, Kath...

Following three years of stinging defeats in the Seven Years' War, the British begin to turn the tide against the French in North America in no small measure because Indigenous peoples decided the war should end.

Featuring: Fred Anderson, Christian Ayne Crouch, Matthew Dziennik, Julie Flavell, John McCurdy, and Serena Zabin.

Voice Actors: Dan Howlett, Alexandre Rios-Bordes, Michael Newton, Brandon Tachco, and Emmanuel Dubois.

Narra...

Great Britain's conquest of New France in North America and its victory in the Seven Years' War inspired British subjects on both sides of the Atlantic to look forward to a future they could see but through a glass darkly, as they struggled to make sense of the world that lay ahead, and the cost of the war they had won.

Featuring: Fred Anderson, Christian Ayne Crouch, Max Edelson, Kathleen DuVal, Patrick Griffin, and Jon Kukla.

Voi...

As the British began to assert control over North America in the wake of the Seven Years' War, the actions of British American settlers and the messages of a native prophet convinced some Indigenous peoples throughout the Ohio Country and beyond that resistance through force was the best way to preserve their sovereignty and usher in the revitalization of their communities.

Featuring: Fred Anderson, George Ironstrack, Maeve Kane, a...

Against the backdrop of Pontiac's War in North America, George III's ministers in London draw on lessons learned in colonial Nova Scotia to begin drafting a blueprint for transforming British America into an empire of order.

Featuring: Fred Anderson, Matthew Dziennik, Max Edelson, and Alexandra Montgomery

Voice Actors: Grace Mallon and Beau Robbins.

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

Find the official transcript here.

This episode is mad...

With a blueprint in place for transforming British America into an empire of order, George III's goverment begins sending an army of cartographers to map North America, while diplomats in the colonies open negogiations with native nations to draw a boundary line between British and Indigenous America. 

Featuring: Max Edelson, Maeve Kane, and Alexandra Montgomery

Voice Actors: Amber Pelham, Nate Sleeter, James Craggs, Luke Jenson-Jo...

At the dawn of a new era after the Seven Years’ War, British officials envision commerce and colonies as the key to British independence and its rising glory, but trade in commodities and manufactured goods comes at an awful price.

Featuring: Emma Hart, Scott Miller, Ann Smart Martin, Hannah Knox Tucker, Hannah Farber, and Zara Anishanslin

Voice Actors: Anne Fertig and Adam Smith

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske

Find the official transc...

In the 1760s, Jamaica and the islands of the British Caribbean were the crown jewels of Britain's American Empire. And as King George III's ministers searched for solutions to a vexing imperial puzzle and moved to counter a pernicious threat in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, they looked west from London, to the islands of sugar.

Featuring: Trevor Burnard, Abby Chandler, Mary Draper, Jon Kukla, Andrew O’Shaughnessy, and Broo...

In the mid-1760s, British fears that a new war with France was only a matter of time leads King George III and his ministers to draw up plans for a permanent army in North America, and a Stamp Tax on the colonies to pay for it, sparking massive protests in British America and beyond.  

Featuring: Jon Kukla, Patrick Griffin, Brad Jones, Abby Chandler, Alexandra Montgomery, Wendy Bellion, and Cassandra Britt Farr...

With the Stamp Act defeated, the Sons of Liberty in New York City celebrate by raising a Liberty Pole in tribute to George III, William Pitt, and Liberty, provoking a violent confrontation with British soldiers quartered in the city's barracks, who see the wooden mast as a monument to mob rule and a symbol of sedition. 

Featuring: Wendy Bellion, Shira Lurie, Jon Kukla, Patrick Griffin, Bra...

In the wake of the Stamp Act Crisis, the British chart a new course for empire in North America by imposing taxes on paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea, pitting British Americans against Parliament…and each other. 

Featuring: Patrick Griffin, Zara Anishanslin, Rosemarie Zagarri, and Christopher Minty.

Voice Actors: Adam...

In response to rioting and protests over the Townshend Acts, the British deploy four regiments to Boston, leading to a deadly shooting on March 5, 1770, a massacre that wounds a family. 

Featuring: Serena Zabin and John McCurdy.

Voice Actors: Anne Fertig, Grace Mallon, Evan McCormick, Adam McNeil, and Nate Sleeter. 

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

Music by Artlist.io

This episode was made possible with support from Richard H. Brown an...

Months after the Boston Massacre, British Americans calling themselves "Regulators" launch a rebellion in western North Carolina that threatens to engulf the colony in revolution and civil war.

Featuring: Abby Chandler, Marjoleine Kars, Cynthia Kierner, and Nathan Schultz.

Voice Actors: Sarah Donelson, Evan McCormick, Norman Rodger, John Terry, and Peter Walker. 

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

The detainment of a West African-born enslaved Virginian named James Somerset in London leads to a court case decided by England's most powerful judge that challenges the foundations of slavery in the British Empire. 

Featuring: Christopher Brown, Trevor Burnard, Julie Flavell, and Chernoh Sesay, Jr. 

Voice Actors: Amber Pelham, Anne Fertig, Gillian MacDonald, Norman Roger, Craig Gallagher, and Adam McNeil.

Narrated by...

British Americans' unquenchable thirst for tea and a looming financial disaster for the East India Company leads to a new crisis in North America when seven tea-laden ships are sent to the colonies in 1773, inspiring Bostonians to dump much of the cargo in Boston Harbor. 

Featuring: Benjamin Carp, James Fichter, Deepthi Murali, and Mary Beth Norton.

Voice Actors: Craig Gallagher, Margaret Hughes, Grace Mallon, Norman Rodger, Annabe...