The American Revolution: Two Centuries of Interpretation

The American Revolution: Two Centuries of Interpretation, edited by Edmund S. Morgan
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965
179 pages, no index, no photos
Library: 973.3 M847

Front Matter
What was the American Revolution? The revolt of an oppressed people against a tyrannical king or the refusal of an ungrateful people to honor ancient debts. A rising of the common man against an aristocratic ruling class or a defense of traditional rights by a united citizenry? A war of national liberation or a civil war?

It has been called all these things; and the way men have viewed it over the years reveals as much about the changing character of the nation the Revolution brought into being as it reveals about the Revolution itself.

In searching for the meaning of the American Revolution, the essays collected in this volume-ranging from David Ramsay's penetrating appraisal of 1788 to analysis by modern scholars-draw the reader into the debate. Whether he agrees with Friedrich Gentz in 1800 that the Revolution was a simple defense of right against wrong or with those later historians who have found the problem more complex, the reader will enjoy responding to the challenge that the Revolution presents to every American's understanding of his country, his times, and himself.

Table of Contents
Introduction: Interpreting the American Revolution
1. David Ramsay: from History of the American Revolution
2. Friedrich Gentz: from The Origin and Principles of the American Revolution, Compared with the Origin and Principles of the French Revolution
3. George Bancroft: from History of the United States of America from the Discovery of the Continent
4. Charles Kendall Adams: "Some Neglected Aspects of the Revolutionary War"
5. J. Franklin Jameson: from The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement
6. Daniel J. Boorstin: from The Genius of American Politics
7. Eric Robson: from The American Revolution in its Political and Military Aspects
8. Lawrence Henry Gipson: "The American Revolution as an Aftermath of the Great War for the Empire, 1754-1765"
9. The American Revolution: Revisions in Need of Revising, Edmund S. Morgan
Suggested Additional Reading

What They Didn't Teach You About the American Revolution, by Mike Wright

What They Didn't Teach You About the American Revolution, by Mike Wright
Presidio Press, 1999
323 pages plus 8 pages of illustrations, Bibliography, and Index
Library: 973.3 WRI

Front Matter
The author of the acclaimed What They Didn't Teach You series tackles his most important subject to daet: the American revolution. Our individual recollections even the key events and personalities of these momentous times are pretty hazy. After all, the Revolution was covered early in the first semester of the American history survey courses we all had to survive on the academic road to diplomas or degrees. Yet, the American Revolution is the defining event, not for a decade, not for a generation, not even for a century, it is the defining event in the history of our country.

Among the topics examined in Wright's sometimes irreverent look back are: what made the founding fathers so great (or were they?); how about a few words for the founding mothers, and spies from Nathan Hale to Benedict Arnold, with enlightening stops on the distaff side for Patience Wright (no relation to our esteemed author), Lydia Darragh, and Ann Bates.

Did you know:
-That John Adams was a Harvard man whereas George Washington's classroom education ended after a few years of elementary school?
-That more American revolutionary soldiers died as POWs then were killed in battle?
-That the first us of dental records to identify a corpse was when Paul Revere identified the body of Joseph Warren, a patriot leader killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill?

As in his previous books on the Civil War and World War II, author Mike Wright breathes life into our nation's history while spotlighting many little-known stories from the American Revolution, along with a fine eye for the human element.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction
1. Prelude to Independence: Revolution, Dogma and Stamps
2. Founding Fathers, Part One: A Farmer, a Lawyer and a Sage
3. Founding Fathers, Part TWo: Best Actors in Supporting Roles
4. Benedict the Bold: Arnold the Traitor
5. G. Washington: The Myth Who Would Be the Man
6. Founding Mothers: Hear them Roar
7. Rag-Tag and Bob-Tail: If it Moves, Salute It
8. Tea Parties and Rude Bridges: Little Things That Mean a Lot
9. Who, What and Where: Big, Bigger and Not So Big
10. Revolutionary Potpourri: Bits of This and That
11. Rituals of Life: History With Bark On
12. And the Winner Is? The Trenches of Yorktown
13. Thee Constitution: We the People
14. The Sting of Death: Final Acts, Final Honors
Epilogue: Personal Thoughts on the American Revolution
Bibliography
Index

Photos
George III
Boston liberty boys tarring and feathering a tax collector
Patrick Henry
Paul Revere's engraving of Boston Massacre
Attack on Bunker Hill and burning of Charlestown, Massachusetts
Signing of Declaration of Independence
Patriots pulling down statue of George III
Major John Andre self-sketch
Execution of Major John Andre
Hanging of Nathan Hale
John Paul Jones capturing the Serapis
British caricature of John Paul Jones as pirate
Colonel Daniel Morgan in battle uniform
Molly Hays (Molly Pitcher)
Taddeus Kosciuszko
Mercy Otis Warren
Baronness von Riedesel
interior of the British prison ship Jersey, moored off Wallabout, Long Island

Redcoats and Rebels, The American Revolution Through British Eyes, by Christopher Hibbert

Redcoats and Rebels, The American Revolution Through British Eyes, by Christopher Hibbert
W.W. Norton & Company, 1990
338 pages, plus 16 pages of illustrations; "The Fate of Characters Whose End Is Not Recorded in the Text"; (8 pages of 2-para or so summaries), Bibliography, Illustration Credits and Index
Library: 973.3 HIN

Back Matter
[The story? - thank you library for placing a sticker over the text!] of this war has usually been told in terms of a conflict betweeen blundering British generals on the one side and heroic American patriots on the other. In this compelling narrative, the acclaimed popular historian Christopher Hibbert offers the Revolution from the unique perspective of the vanquished. Here the famous heroes and villains on both sides-Washington, Revere, Burgoyne, Cornwallis, Benedict Arnold-come to life in a vivid narrative that reveals not only how the colonists won the war but also why the English lost it.

Table of Contents
Table of Principle Events
Author's Notes and Acknowledgments
Prologue

Part One
1. Sons of Liberty
2. First Blood
3. Bunker Hill
4. Washington Takes Command
5. 'An Ugly Job'
6. The War in Canada
7. Disasters in Virginia

Part Two
8. The Declaration of Independence
9. The for New York
10. Generals at Loggerheads
11. Winter on the Delaware
12. The Fall of Philadelphia
13. The Army of the North
14. Surrender at Saratoga
15. The English Debate
16. Intrigues at Valley Forge
17. Fighting at Monmouth Court House
18. Enemies of the French

Part Three
19. Marching Through Georgia
20. Quarrels in New York
21. Butchers and Patriots
22. Slaughter on King's Mountain
23. The Traitor and the Spy
24. With Cornwallis in the Carolinas
25. The Road to Yorktown
Epilogue
The Fate of Characters Whose End is Not Recorded in the Text
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index

Maps
1. The American colonies in 1775
2. The Siege of Boston
3. The Northern Campaigns, 1775-6
4. Charleston and Environs
5. New York and Environs
6. Howe's Philadelphia Campaign
7. The Northern Campaigns
8. The Southern Campaigns
9. The Siege of Yorktown

Illustrations
1.Boston Massacre, 29th Regiment vs mob. With Captain Preston
2. Tea Party at Griffin's Wharf on 16 December 1773
3. Frederick, Lord North, King George III's Prime Minister
4. John Burgoyne
5. Major-General Sir Henry Clinton
6. Lord George Germain, secretary of state for the American Department in Lord North's administration
7. Charles Lee
8. Bunker's Hill or America's Headdress
9. Six pence a day - satire on the lot of the Redcoat
10. The pulling down of GEorge III's statue in Bowling Green, NY
11. New York fire
12. General Burgoyne's Camp on the Hudson River, with funeral procession of Brigadier General Simon Fraser
13. The Conference Between the Brothers How to Get Rich
14. Major John Andre
15. The Count de Rochambeau, reviewing French troops, caricature
16. Lord Cornwallis' defeat of the rebels at Guildford, North Carolina
17. The Savages Let Loose or the Cruel Fate of the Loyalists
18. Britannia and America Embracing as France and Spain try to pull them apart
19. A British drummer and fifer
20. German mercenaries of the Prince Carl regiment
21. American infantry sketched by Baron von Closen, aide-de-camp to French commander Rochambeau. A black light infantryman of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, a musketeer of the 2nd Canadian regiment, a rifleman, and a gunner of the Continental Artillery
22. The Bloody [Boston] Massacre, engraving by Paul Revere
23. Paul Revere
24. Sir William Howe directing the evacuation of Boston in March 1776
25. Benedict Arnold
26 Death of Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery before Quebec
27. Royal Navy Bombarding Fort Moultrie
28. Thomas Jefferson presenting Declaration of Independence to Congress, painting by John Trumbull
29. George Washington by Charles Wilson Peale
30. George Washington leads forces at Princeton
31. Battle pf Germantown by Xavier della Gatta
32. British surrender at Saratoga, by John Trumbull
33. Christmas Day 1777, George Washington and his wife visit troops at Valley Forge
34. Siege of Charleston
35. Banastre Tarleton full length portrait by Joshua Reynolds
36. John Singleton Copley's portrait of Lord Cornwallis
37. Surrender at Yorktown, painting by John Trumbull

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

Manifesto

Books written about the American Revolution