The Battle of Culloden: A Pivotal Moment in World History

The battle of Culloden, an encounter between armies of the Hanoverian and Stuart dynasties on a Scottish moor in April 1746, traditionally has been treated in the historiography as a strictly British affair with exclusively British consequences. This essay seeks to place the battle in a much broader framework, suggesting that it had long-term implications for not just Britain, but for much of the rest of the world as well. It contends that it is not unreasonable to argue, for example, that if the battle had been lost by the Hanoverians, the United States probably would not exist today and French would be the primary language spoken in North America.