Dimensions
153 x 234 x 38mm
In a boldly original and immensely vivid narrative, a leading historian explores the blaze of radical ideas and agendas that fired Americans to rise up and throw off the British yoke.
In 1775, war broke out between British and the American colonists. By 1776 the colonists had declared themselves independent and in 1783, following a long and bloody conflict, Britain was forced to recognise the independence of the United States. Writing with the benefit of hindsight in 1818, John Adams, one of the central figures in the Revolution, recalled that Americans were committed to independence in their hearts long before the outbreak of hostilities. This remarkable new book not only tells the story of the Revolutionary war -- the longest and most disruptive upheaval in American history -- but also explores the truth of Adams's claim.
The Founding Fathers -- those men who signed the Declaration of Independence against Britain -- may have led the charge, but the energy to raise a revolt emerged from all classes and races of American society. 'The Unknown American Revolution' plunges us into the swirl of ideology, grievance, outrage and hope that animated the Revolutionary decades. It tells of the efforts of a wide variety of men and women who stepped forward amidst a discouraging, debilitating, but ultimately successful war to inscribe on the clean slate their ideas for the kind of America they hoped would emerge from the blood-soaked eight-year conflict.
Their goal was to set a new course for the new country, one free of entrenched class hostilities, religious bigotry and racism. The people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of the country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become a crucial and fundamental part of America's inheritance.
