I am beyond pleased to see the short essay ("Captured British Flag") that my fellow historian and friend, Gonzalo Quintero, and I wrote together appear in the "76 Objects" special issue of the American Historical Review.
Monday, July 6, 2026
Thursday, July 2, 2026
56 Rue Jacob, the Treaty of Paris, and the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
As the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approaches, there is a tendency to conflate the declaration of independence in 1776 and the subsequent acts that ultimately secured US independence at the end of the revolutionary war. The latter occurred only in 1783 as a result of the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended hostilities with Britain. The signing of the treaty has been memorialized in an unfinished painting by Benjamin West.
The treaty itself was signed at 56 Rue Jacob in Paris, at what was previously the Hôtel d’York, a stone’s throw from what was then the British Embassy. The building stands and has served several purposes, which are recounted here. Curiously, the significance of the building was not known to the US government as late as the 1950s, when a plaque was affixed to its façade (it appears that the original plaque has been replaced with a new one).
Given the importance of the Treaty of Paris in American History (and to the History of International Relations), I found it surprising, when walking the Rue Jacob on an unseasonably hot evening in late May, that the building in which the treaty was signed has suffered from neglect. The plaque, in French, draws attention to the building’s significance, but otherwise the graffiti defacing the entry way is what catches the eye. Its parlous state is all the more striking given its location in one of the more fashionable districts of Paris.
The treaty itself was signed at 56 Rue Jacob in Paris, at what was previously the Hôtel d’York, a stone’s throw from what was then the British Embassy. The building stands and has served several purposes, which are recounted here. Curiously, the significance of the building was not known to the US government as late as the 1950s, when a plaque was affixed to its façade (it appears that the original plaque has been replaced with a new one).
Given the importance of the Treaty of Paris in American History (and to the History of International Relations), I found it surprising, when walking the Rue Jacob on an unseasonably hot evening in late May, that the building in which the treaty was signed has suffered from neglect. The plaque, in French, draws attention to the building’s significance, but otherwise the graffiti defacing the entry way is what catches the eye. Its parlous state is all the more striking given its location in one of the more fashionable districts of Paris.
56 Rue Jacob is sometimes included in lists of sites in Paris of interest to students of US History. Yet the relative neglect of the building and the lack of widespread knowledge of the building’s significance in a year in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent commemorating and celebrating American independence is dissonant. The building’s present state is inescapably symbolic as well as dismaying to those scholars, myself included, who emphasize the international and imperial dimensions of the American Revolution. One can only hope for a refurbishment before 2033, when the 250th anniversary of the US’s entry into the community of nations is celebrated.
Thursday, October 13, 2022
paperback of "Spain and the American Revolution"/ University of Virginia Press
https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5840
"Academic Freedom and the Public University" Conference/ October 2022
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Reviews of my European Seaborne Empires (as of August 2021)
Several Reviews of The European Seaborne Empires have appeared as of August 2021.
These include reviews in:
Hispanic American Historical Review
Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Bulletin of Latin American Research
Links are embedded in the title of the publication.
Friday, March 5, 2021
"Can Higher Ed Save Itself?" Chronicle of Higher Education (March 4, 2021)
https://www.chronicle.com/article/can-higher-ed-save-itself
Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Anglo-Portuguese Relations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Informal Empire, Arbitration, and the Durability of an Asymmetrical Alliance
Anglo-Portuguese Relations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Informal Empire, Arbitration, and the Durability of an Asymmetrical Alliance *:
published in the English Historical Review (2020)
published in the English Historical Review (2020)
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
Demotic and “democratic” languages in post-independence Brazil, 1822-48
Demotic and “democratic” languages in post-independence Brazil, 1822-48: (2020). Demotic and “democratic” languages in post-independence Brazil, 1822-48. Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies. Ahead of Print.
Friday, June 12, 2020
Oxford Latin American Centre event (June 2020)
Tertúlia
at the Latin American History Seminar
Abolitionism and Politics
in Imperial Brazil
Jeffrey Needell, University of Florida, Gainesville,
Gabe Paquette, University of Oregon
This event will take place on Zoom
Please email paola.quevedogarzon@area.ox.ac.uk with your e-mail address so we can register you. ***The deadline to register is 18th of June at 12:00 noon.
***If you are already on our LAC mailing list you will receive the event link by email - there is no need to contact us***
If you would like to join the LAC mailing list please email elvira.ryan@lac.ox.ac.uk to be added
Jeffrey D. Needell is Professor of History and Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. He is the author of A Tropical Belle Epoque: Elite Culture and Society in Turn-of-the-Century Rio de Janeiro (1987) and The Party of Order: The Conservatives, the State, and Slavery in the Brazilian Monarchy, 1831-1871 (2006), and is the editor of Emergent Brazil: Key Perspectives on a New Global Power (2015). His most recent book and focus of this Tertúlia, The Sacred Cause. The Abolitionist Movement, Afro-Brazilian Mobilization, and Imperial Politics in Rio de Janeiro, was published by Stanford University Press earlier this year.
Gabe Paquette is Professor of History at the University of Oregon. Paquette previously held research and teaching posts at the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Wesleyan University, and, for almost a decade, The Johns Hopkins University, where he was also Director of the Program in Latin American Studies. Paquette's research focuses on aspects of European, Latin American, and International History. His most recent book, The European Seaborne Empires: From the Thirty Years' War to the Age of Revolutions, was published in 2019.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Spain and the American Revolution at APS (May 2020)
Book Talk at American Philosophical Society (May 2020)
The David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society Library & Museum is pleased to welcome Dr. Gabriel Paquette and Dr. Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia to discuss their co-edited book Spain and the American Revolution: New Approaches and Perspectives. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Patrick Spero, Librarian and Director of the APS Library & Museum.
The David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society Library & Museum is pleased to welcome Dr. Gabriel Paquette and Dr. Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia to discuss their co-edited book Spain and the American Revolution: New Approaches and Perspectives. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Patrick Spero, Librarian and Director of the APS Library & Museum.
Thursday, November 14, 2019
Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia and Gabriel Paquette, eds., Spain and the American Revolution (Routledge, 2020)
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Sunday, March 31, 2019
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