American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

Alan Taylor

Sep 2016 · W. W. Norton & Company

About this ebook

“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.

Ratings and reviews

The ebook (and the original) lack a detailed Table of Contents . The TOC lists only Chapter headings and is without sub-headings. Chapters are long and contain material that may not be anticipated by the one word chapter heading. While footnotes are hypertext linked, the Index is not dynamically linked. The index displays the associated page numbers. As the ebook page numbering has been lost, the Index becomes worthless. One would need to use the Search function to locate any entry. Even in print, the Index would not be very useful as it contains only one entry level. For example 'George Washington' is listed 21 times in the Index. Without a second level of entry, one doesn't know whether a particular entry refers to 'land speculation' or 'military campaigns'. The fact that the publisher is complacent in advising ebook users to use a search function as an index substitute implies that the index may have been assembled by a machine instead of a human. Without human involvement some index entries may be trivial. The book is large and complex; and without a good index or detailed table of contents it becomes cumbersome. I'd recommend extensive highlighting as you read so that your notes can supplement the text. Writing style is concise and neat. Some obvious prejudices remain: the book has a chapter titled 'Slaves' but no chapter titled 'Indians' or 'First Nations'.

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.