Overview

The meaning of the American Revolution has always been a much-contested question, and asking it is particularly important today: the standard, easily digested narrative puts the Founding Fathers at the head of a unified movement, failing to acknowledge the deep divisions in Revolutionary-era society and the many different historical interpretations that have followed. Whose American Revolution Was It? speaks both to the ways diverse groups of Americans who lived through the Revolution might have answered that question and to the different ways historians through the decades have interpreted the Revolution for our own time. As the only volume to offer an accessible and sweeping discussion of the period's historiography and its historians, Whose American Revolution Was It? is an essential reference for anyone studying early American history. The first section, by Alfred F. Young, begins in 1925 with historian J. Franklin Jameson and takes the reader through the successive schools of interpretation up to the 1990s. The second section, by Gregory H. Nobles, focuses primarily on the ways present-day historians have expanded our understanding of the broader social history of the Revolution, bringing onto the stage farmers and artisans, who made up the majority of white men, as well as African Americans, Native Americans, and women of all social classes.

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9780814797105

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Reviews

A masterful synthesis of almost 100 years of scholarship on the American Revolution. [Readers] will find this work to be an invaluable guide to understanding the revolutionary period of American history. Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University

A masterful synthesis of almost 100 years of scholarship on the American Revolution. [Readers] will find this work to be an invaluable guide to understanding the revolutionary period of American history. Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University Gregory Nobles' deft exploration of a new wave of scholarship on the American Revolutionary era extends Alfred Young's earlier historiographical classic. With a master's touch, they have provided the go-to book for all who treasure the American Revolution as the seedtime of American democracy while looking to its multi-faceted dimensions for answers to today's problems and challenges. Gary Nash, author of The Unknown American Revolution Young and Nobles bring together all the richness that historians have found about the real, dramatic, transforming, liberating, and sometimes tragic American Revolutionary era. Everybody who is seriously interested in how the United States began should read this book. Edward Countryman, author of The American Revolution and Americans, A Collision of Histories There is no better guide to the recent debates about the social history of the Revolution. Young and Nobles make it clear what is at stake in how we characterize the Revolution's nature and impact. A must-read for all students of the Revolutionary era. David Waldstreicher Young and Nobles' characterizations of their often quirky protagonists are so vivid and so witty that to me, Whose American Revolution Was It? felt less like reading a book than like watching a play. Woody Holton, author of Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution

Young and Nobles' characterizations of their often quirky protagonists are so vivid and so witty that to me, Whose American Revolution Was It? felt less like reading a book than like watching a play. -Woody Holton,author of Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution Young and Nobles bring together all the richness that historians have found about the real, dramatic, transforming, liberating, and sometimes tragic American Revolutionary era. Everybody who is seriously interested in how the United States began should read this book. -Edward Countryman,author of The American Revolution and Americans, A Collision of Histories A masterful synthesis of almost 100 years of scholarship on the American Revolution. Scholars, students, and non-specialists will find this work to be an invaluable guide to understanding the revolutionary period of American history. -Rosemarie Zagarri,George Mason University Gregory Nobles' deft exploration of a new wave of scholarship on the American Revolutionary era extends Alfred Young's earlier historiographical classic. With a master's touch, they have provided the go-to book for all who treasure the American Revolution as the seedtime of American democracy while looking to its multi-faceted dimensions for answers to today's problems and challenges. -Gary Nash,author of The Unknown American Revolution There is no better guide to the recent debates about the social history of the Revolution. Young and Nobles make it clear what is at stake in how we characterize the Revolution's nature and impact. A must-read for all students of the Revolutionary era. -David Waldstreicher

Author Information

Alfred F. Young is Alfred Young is Emeritus Professor of History, Northern Illinois University. His numerous books include The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution and Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution (NYU Press). Gregory H. Nobles is Professor in the School of History, Technology, and Society at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the author of American Frontiers: Cultural Encounters and Continental Conquest, among other works.

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