Worlds Turned Upside Down
Worlds Turned Upside Down tells the story of the American Revolution as a transatlantic crisis and imperial civil war through the lives of people who experienced it. Worlds is written and narrated by Jim Ambuske, and executive produced by Jeanette Patrick.
Recent Episodes
Aug. 25, 2025
Episode 18: The Resurrection
Fourteen years after British forces conquered New France during the Seven Years’ War, Parliament’s passage of the Quebec Act in 1774 resurrects old fears of French Catholic tyranny in Protestant British America. Featuring: Ka...
July 29, 2025
Episode 17: The Tyranny
In the wake of the Boston Tea Party, Parliament passes a series of coercive and intolerable acts to punish the tea destroyers and bring order to British America. Featuring: Benjamin Carp, James Fichter, and Mary Beth Norton. ...
June 30, 2025
Episode 16: The Tea
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.
May 31, 2025
Episode 15: The Heavens Fall
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.
May 5, 2025
Episode 14: The Corruption
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.
March 7, 2025
Episode 13: The Massacre
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.
Dec. 18, 2024
Episode 12: The Conspiracy
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.
Oct. 22, 2024
Episode 11: The Resistance
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.
Sept. 13, 2024
Episode 10: The Stamp
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...
July 27, 2024
Episode 9: The Sugar
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 a counter pernicious threat in the...
June 8, 2024
Episode 8: The Trade
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.
May 2, 2024
Episode 7: The Divide
With a blueprint in place for transforming British America into an empire of order, George III's government begins sending an army of cartographers to map North America, while diplomats in the colonies open negotiations with native nations to draw a...
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