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Rebellion
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What is Rebellion?

Rebellion as a subject of academic study spans history, literature, political science, and cultural analysis. It draws attention across disciplines because it sits at the intersection of power, freedom, and social change — asking why individuals and groups resist authority and what consequences follow. Courses in English literature examine rebellion as a creative and philosophical stance, as seen in Coleridge's challenge to eighteenth-century conventions, while history courses trace organized uprisings from Bacon's rebellion and the Nika revolt in sixth-century Constantinople to the broader currents of Revolutionary America. Dylan Thomas's resistance to passivity in "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" shows how rebellion also operates as a deeply personal theme in literary texts.

Student papers on this topic take a wide range of approaches. Historical case studies examine specific uprisings — Turner's rebellion, Tecumseh's pursuit of Indigenous leadership and unity, colonial-era revolts — analyzing their causes, their popular support, and their outcomes. Literary analyses focus on how poets and writers frame resistance and defiance. Comparative and thematic essays ask larger questions, such as whether rebellion grows from conformist cultures, or how revolution, rebellion, and resistance relate to one another across different contexts and governments.

A strong essay on rebellion establishes a clear, arguable thesis rather than simply describing events or texts. Evidence drawn from primary sources, whether historical documents or literary works, carries the most weight and should be analyzed rather than summarized. The most common pitfall is treating rebellion as uniformly heroic or uniformly destructive — a convincing essay acknowledges the complexity of power dynamics and the varied motivations that drive people to resist.

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Paper Undergraduate
Wars of principle: Britain, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands
Although the age of imperialism has slowly, but inexorably, been consigned to history books, with the great British, Spanish and Portuguese empires that once dominated the globe now largely defunct after the revolutionary spirit swept through colonies from America to Argentina, vestiges of this age-old system still remain to this day. Despite withdrawing from the vast majority of its former colonies after successful campaigns for independence were waged, the United Kingdom has strived to maintain a semblance of its former power by maintaining control over small areas of land within the nations it previously ruled over. Hong Kong in China, Gibraltar in the Iberian Peninsula, and a half dozen Caribbean islands from Bermuda to Turks and Caicos, the custom of leaving behind British territories in the wake of widespread independence movements was instituted to ensure that the United Kingdom's dogged pursuit of its centuries-old imperialistic ambitions was not undertaken in vain. In the case of British engagement with Argentina, which began, like so many similar conflicts between European nations and the natives of the newly discovered American continent1, with the United Kingdom's claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in 1833, a series of geopolitical maneuvers and cultural upheavals resulted in the outbreak of open warfare in 1982.
Paper Undergraduate
Abolition movements in Britain and the Caribbean during the slave trade era
The history of the United States is full of stories of brave men who fought tyranny in order to create a land of the free and the home of the brave. Students' first experience with history relates tales of the Founding…
Paper Doctorate
The crusades and England's transformation from feudal to market economy
The crusade era was also termed as the era of commercial revolution in England, since it changed the economy from being a traditional economy to a market economy. During the crusade period economies were self sufficient…
Essay High School
Security as a prerequisite for freedom and personal wellbeing
Which do you value, more freedom or security?
Research Paper Doctorate
Locke's conception of the state of nature and war
Locke's Conception of the State of Nature vs. The State of War
Paper Undergraduate
Nat Turner's rebellion and the redefinition of freedom after the Civil War
This essay discusses the issue of being free towards the end of the civil war. For example, t mentioned in this chapter how 1831 was the turning point for the south. The turning point involved the fact that people wanted to see the slaves freed and that sparked that new level of vision for the slaves.
Paper Undergraduate
Space, confinement, and women in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
The paper focuses upon the themes of space and confinement in the story "The Yellow Wallpaper." The paper asserts several arguments for how space is metaphoric for the female experience in the time the pieces was composed, at the close of the 19th century. The paper makes continuous reference to content from the story to support views and construct counterarguments.
Research Paper Doctorate
Nat Turner's rebellion in Stephen Oates' historical narrative
¶ … Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion," by Stephen B. Oates. Specifically, it will analyze the historical value of the book, and analyze the author's assessment that "His [Nat Turner's] rebellion…
Thesis Doctorate
William Blake's radical sexual politics in three early works
William Blake is usually classified with the Romantic movement in English literature -- which coalesced in the revolutionary climate of the late eighteenth century, and roughly spanned the period from 1780 to 1830.
Paper Doctorate
The Amistad trial and the fight against American slavery
In 1839 the United States was bitterly divided over the issue of slavery. The House of Representatives had enacted a gag order which effectively blocked any anti-slavery legislation from being discussed.