Independence - Hardcover

P.; Thomas Slaughter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809058340 ISBN 13: 9780809058341

Publisher: Hill and Wang, 2014

Synopsis

What do we mean by the Revolution? John Adams asked Thomas Jefferson in 1815. The war? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an effect and consequence of it. As the distinguished historian Thomas P. Slaughter shows in this landmark history, the roots of the Revolution went back even further than Adams may have realized. In Slaughter's account, colonists in British North America starting in the early seventeenth century chafed under imperial rule. Though successive British kings called them lawless, they insisted on their moral courage and political principles, and regarded their independence as a great virtue. Their struggles to define this independence took many forms: from New England and Nova Scotia to New York and Pennsylvania and south to the Carolinas, colonists resisted unsympathetic royal governors, smuggled to evade British duties, and organized for armed uprisings. In the eighteenth century-especially after victories over France-the British were eager to crush these rebellions, but American opposition only intensified. In Independence, Slaughter resets and clarifies the terms of this remarkable development, showing how and why a critical mass of colonists determined that they could not be both independent and subject to the British Crown. By 1775-76, they had become revolutionaries-willing to go to war to defend their independence, not simply to gain it.

About this title

Review:

Praise for Independence Thomas P. Slaughter has done a magnificent job in reinterpreting how the United States was born, and he ably shows us how inflamed the American colonists were by the British Crown from the seventeenth century on. His scholarship is impeccable. I highly recommend his book. --Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and historian for CBS News. Only bold historians will attempt one-volume histories of the American Revolution's origins; Slaughter brings his off brilliantly. Rarely, if ever, has this history been told with such graceful readability, freshness, and clarity. It's mostly narrative history, with Slaughter, a biographer and historian of American naturalists and the early republic, avoiding academic arguments while introducing some of the latest academic perspectives. The major one is to place the coming of the Revolution in its world-historical context and show how colonial events were linked to developments in India, Europe, and elsewhere. Slaughter's . . . organizing theme is applied lightly and never intrudes on the hard-to-put-down tale, filled with apt quotations and captivating human portraits . . . As a political, event-filled history of its subject, this masterful work is unsurpassed. --Publishers Weekly (starred review)Finely researched . . . Slaughter looks carefully at the influence on the colonies of Britain's empire-making across the globe, from India to the Ohio Valley, Nova Scotia to the Caribbean . . . The author underscores the vastly different views about independence versus separation held by the British and the colonists. The British were bewildered by the colonists' pursuit of anarchy and confusion, while the colonists were first and foremost deeply rooted in a sense of personal liberty of conscience above any act of government. Erudite and fascinating--Kirkus --Various

About the Author:

Thomas P. Slaughteris the author of The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition (Hill and Wang, 2008) and four other books. He is the Arthur R. Miller Professor at the University of Rochester and the editor of Reviews in American History.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hill and Wang
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0809058340
• ISBN 13: 9780809058341
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 512