“The pages that follow represent my attempt to tell the story of a highly compressed historical moment that subsequent generations called the American Revolution.”
This opening sentence addresses a question I often have about historical moments, especially ones known in special terms like the American Revolution: what was it called at the time? For the would-be Americans, it was often called “The Cause” and for the British it would have been called the “American Rebellion” and this question isn’t something that is discussed all that much in a lot of American contexts. What exactly did the British think and say about the American Revolution at the time?
Joseph Ellis discusses this question, among many other here, and while the story of the revolution as we generally know it comes up here, I want to highlight a few moments especially interesting.
~~Ellis frames the American Revolution early on in terms of the American being an insurgent force fighting against an increasingly weary occupying force with superior numbers. He asks if this sounds familiar.
~~Ellis gives small interpolated biographies of interesting, but somewhat overlooked figures of the Cause.
~~Ellis tells us that George III was not entirely that disliked over all, and was even especially liked in some company. But through the work of Sam Adams, his reputation changed, but through propaganda more than anything.
~~The book is not especially enamored with Washington’s general prowess.
~~Ellis frames the most of the Stamp Act, Intolerable Acts, and Coercive Acts, as an exercise of parliamentary power asserting rights to establish the legitimacy of the power and which actually cost more to enforce than revenue brought in.
~~Ellis does a pretty good job of dealing with questions of race in the American Revolution, probably not as much as he could, but near infinitely more than most histories.
