Recommend some good books on the American Revolution.

>>21979493 (OP)

Almost A Miracle - John Ferling

>>21979493 (OP)

Don't know anything to contribute

luv colonial america and there is a surprising lack of quality work in regard to the revolution

>>21979493 (OP)

The GOAT book on the American Revolution is "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" by Gordon Wood (yes, THAT Gordon Wood).



It talks about the big picture radicalism that occurred as a result of the revolution, not merely from an American perspective, and talks about the effects it had on future revolutions and forms of governments.

Patriots

I thought the French Revolution was much bloodier than America's?

>>21979493 (OP)

just made this recently. any suggestions?

nice books, but it's horribly ugly

>>21979493 (OP)

The problem with this category is that it is full of rose colored historical storytelling, they are not allowed to publish wrong-think. 

Good guys won, and that is that.

I think there are several interesting reasons why that is, at least compared to something like the Civil War. One is obviously because it happened a long time ago, and things become exponentially more alien to us and harder to interpret/relate to the further back it is. Even to people alive during the Civil War, the Revolutionary Wars were old and dusty, remember even 50 years after 1776 when Lafayette returned to the US he was by then considered already an ancient hero of almost mythological times. Entire empires rose and fell between those two dates, and between the American Revolution and now the world has been basically made twice over at a minimum. Also doesn’t help that the American Revolution was first and foremost led by wealthy landowners, with those who were doing the actual fighting more or less illiterate, unlike in the Civil War again where there were more letters and journals than could be read in an entire university faculty’s lifetimes. Much has just been simply lost to time. And it must be said it was not a particularly glamorous or Romantic war when it comes down to it, as it largely predates the time Romanticism became mainstream and its leaders like Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had distinctly 18th century personalities and perhaps to modern eyes were too stoic and closed off to relate to or even understand. It’s no surprise that one of the only charismatic ones Alexander Hamilton appeals much more to contemporary audiences now, but even then if people were to meet the actual Hamilton of history I doubt they would have a single thing in common. There is perhaps only one real subject that came out of the American Revolution that has a truly interesting novel in it beyond it just being interesting as history for history’s sake, and that’s Benedict Arnold.
