Monday, November 5, 2012

Booktalk

The American Revolution: A History by Gordon S. Wood
(A Modern Library Chronicles Book)

    Battles, names, and dates are not central to this short book about the American Revolution; perhaps not even central to understanding what swept the colonies in the 1760s!  Rather, it is the context of the times in England and the colonies, the snowballing expectation and identity among colonists that they were, as individuals, equal to any and all other individuals in the world, and the awakening revelation that they were framing a new reality for the world - men, not governments, as sovereigns - that is explored and credited for those remarkable times.
    Wood constructs methodical cause and effect relations that explain well-know American Revolution events by documenting, for instance, growing and shifting colonial populations, the impact these expansions had on inciting American Indian tribes, British response with an enlarged military presence, and the subsequent acts and taxes enacted to pay for that deployment - all of which precipitated the rebellious events we are familiar with.
    Or how years of “under-supervised” activities in the expanding colonies cultivated the evolution of “can-do,” “everyman” colonists who organized needed local institutions and who distrusted even colonial leadership that was “distant” and from which they lacked representation - setting the stage in the 1760s for the unprecedented confidence that these ordinary people felt in calling the British crown to task.
    It is a study in motives and forces that keeps pace with the dynamism and coming-of-age of our nation.

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