American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

by Alan Taylor

Overview

“Excellent . . . deserves high praise. Mr. Taylor conveys this sprawling continental history with economy, clarity, and vividness.”—Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal

The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the nation its democratic framework. Alan Taylor, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history. The American Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain’s colonies, fueled by local conditions and resistant to control. Emerging from the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, the revolution pivoted on western expansion as well as seaboard resistance to British taxes. When war erupted, Patriot crowds harassed Loyalists and nonpartisans into compliance with their cause. The war exploded in set battles like Saratoga and Yorktown and spread through continuing frontier violence.

The discord smoldering within the fragile new nation called forth a movement to concentrate power through a Federal Constitution. Assuming the mantle of “We the People,” the advocates of national power ratified the new frame of government. But it was Jefferson’s expansive “empire of liberty” that carried the revolution forward, propelling white settlement and slavery west, preparing the ground for a new conflagration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393354768
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/26/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	704
Sales rank:	143,576
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Alan Taylor, twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History, is the author of American Revolutions and American Republics, prior volumes in his acclaimed continental history of the United States. He is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at University of Virginia, and lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Table of Contents

List of Maps xiii

List of Illustrations xv

Introduction 1

1 Colonies 11

2 Land 55

3 Slaves 91

4 Rebels 131

5 Allies 175

6 Loyalties 211

7 Wests 251

8 Oceans 281

9 Shocks 313

10 Republics 353

11 Partisans 395

12 Legacies 437

Acknowledgments 481

Chronology 485

Notes 497

Bibliography 609

Index 665

Editorial Reviews

"An epic, landmark history that places the American Revolution on a global stage while never losing sight of the struggles and sufferings of major and minor characters… Taylor’s range is masterful."

Jill Lepore

"As masterful as its author and as pluralist as its title, American Revolutions combines strong narrative drive with a kaleidoscopic array of settings and characters. In vivid prose animated by prodigious research, Taylor reveals the fight for the independence of the United States as a bloody civil war in which violence and division were the norms and clarity of purpose the exception. This is a sweeping synthesis for a new century."

Jane Kamensky

"American Revolutions is a game changer—a sprawling, ambitious history that forever alters our understanding of the Revolutionary War era."

Elizabeth Fenn

"The new standard work—essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complicated beginnings of our national history."

Peter S. Onuf

Taylor really wants to show that the Revolution was anything but the "good, orderly, restrained and successful" event usually depicted "in popular history books and films." By broadening the context, he aims to desacralize the Revolution, to explode popular myths about it and to rip aside the mantle of nobility, dignity and heroism that he believes has too long covered up its sordid and bloody reality.

The New York Times Book Review - Gordon S. Wood

06/13/2016
Taylor, professor of history at the University of Virginia and Pulitzer Prize–winner for The Internal Enemy, further cements his reputation with this comprehensive analysis of an American Revolution that was anything but the relatively decorous event of popular myth. The revolutionary era was a time of divisions and uncertainties. “Turmoil persisted after the formal peace treaty,” Taylor writes. But that upheaval inspired political and cultural creativity that enabled a nation to emerge from “much cruelty, violence, and destruction.” Stressing the importance of the trans-Appalachian west, Taylor suggests that the conflict between land-hungry settlers and restrictive British polices was just as important to sparking revolution as the resistance to taxation that inflamed the Atlantic coast. This expanded perspective frames Taylor’s presentation of George Washington’s understanding that “victory hinged on who could endure a long, hard, bitter struggle.” Taylor analyzes “the cycles of invasion, exposure, and suppression” that convinced most Americans that “a Patriot victory offered the best prospect for restoring peace and stability.” He also highlights the “broad and anarchic borderland” where “Patriots fought... to suppress the independence of native peoples” in the name of creating an “empire of liberty.” Provocative and persuasive, Taylor’s fine work demonstrates that on a continent “riven with competing allegiances and multiple possibilities,” the newly independent U.S. by no means faced a secure future. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

06/15/2016
In his sequel to American Colonies, Taylor (history, Univ. of Virginia) considers the American revolutionary era, from the causes of the war for independence to the formation of a new nation. The author traces how the concept of nationalism developed in the latter half of the 18th century, slowly spreading from the Eastern colonies to the Western frontier as it cleaved the population in two, eventually pitting colonist against colonist and settler against settler as a small but increasingly influential and militant group of rebellious patriots raged war against not only Britain but also neighbors who were resistant to independence and remained loyal to Parliament. Taylor also examines the first two decades of American sovereignty, emphasizing the Founding Fathers' conflicting views on freedom, slavery, democracy, republicanism, and international relations, and clearly yet thoroughly explaining how the Constitution and Bill of Rights materialized within a hostile political climate. Included is a handy chronology of major events, an extensive bibliography, and a lengthy notes section. VERDICT This well-documented and thoroughly researched but also accessibly written book is recommended to readers interested in colonial and postcolonial American history, especially those who enjoyed Taylor's similarly impressive American Colonies. [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/16.]—Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

Library Journal

★ 2016-05-31
A clear, authoritative, well-organized look at the messy Colonial march toward revolution and self-rule.In this broad history, eminent historian Taylor (History/Univ. of Virginia; The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, 2013, etc.), who has won the Pulitzer Prize (twice), the National Book Award, and the Bancroft Prize, underscores the myriad complex facets to the rebellion against British authority starting in the mid-18th century, especially the westward thrust to settle newly won Indian territory. Between 1754 and 1763, at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, the British and their colonists had conquered French Canada and claimed the West as far as the Mississippi River. The colonists naturally assumed they would "share in the imperial fruits of victory," but instead, the British authorities aimed to exert greater control over the Colonies, restricting speculation west of the Appalachians by proclamation and extracting much-needed revenue from them to pay for the costly war. Considering themselves "free-born Englishmen," the colonists hoped for a great partnership with the mother country, but they were treated as "distant and wayward inferiors." Compounding the tension, notes the author, was the vacuum of civil government left by the British in the lands to the West between restive Colonial settlers and the resentful Indians. Taylor superbly emphasizes the key role of slaves in the revolutionary period—namely, the contradiction of the colonists' claiming the language of liberty while possessing slaves (to the ridicule by Britons)—and the role of women in spurring and aiding the rebels. Moreover, the author impressively relays the sense of torn loyalties and how the revolutionary associations empowered the common man to step up and participate. He moves through the Revolution itself to the complicated aftermath of partisan politics, exacerbated by the global conflict ignited by the French Revolution. His final chapters on "Partisans" and "Legacies" delineate the first sticky political schisms and the vast postwar challenges in terms of culture, gender, race, and economy. Beautifully organized and accessibly presented history for all readers.

Kirkus Reviews