Here you will find snippets of a research project tracking the history of the slogan Liberty or Death! across the revolutionary Atlantic between, roughly, 1770 and 1820.

I plan to write a series of Notes on Slogans, trying to bring some system to my evolving reflections on what they are, how they emerge and disappear, and the vocabulary and methods we might use to best understand them.

The first is called What Should We Call Them? (31 Aug 2026)

Alongside this I will offer some Case Studies, focusing on a particular text or historical moment in which Liberty or Death! seems to play a particularly significant role.

The first of these, in preparation, is a reading of Robert Burns’ song, ‘Scots wha hae’ in the context of the official clampdown on seditious words in the 1790s.

The second will be a study of the uniform alleged to have been worn by the Culpeper Minutemen in Virginia in the autumn of 1775.