In this virtual talk, T.H. Breen discusses his new book, The American Revolution on Trial: A New Nation Confronts the Burden of Independence (March 2026), which reconstructs a strange court martial held in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1778. General John Burgoyne, himself then a prisoner of war, demanded that leading Continental officers try an honored American colonel for possible abuse of British soldiers. The trial was only marginally a military story. Rather, it raised troublesome issues about achieving cultural independence from Great Britain--even during a war--and demonstrated how preserving the rule of law was important for people eager to establish an honorable reputation for the New Republic.