THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Companion volume to the much-awaited Ken Burns documentary series.

Longtime Burns collaborator Ward treats the American Revolution not just as a laboratory for addressing the question of how people are best governed, but also as a “savage civil war” with more than its share of atrocities. Noting that “we have mostly chosen to see the Revolution in bloodless, gallant terms,” Ward enumerates the reasons for breaking away from Britain: the failure of Parliament to include colonial representatives, providing an argument for not paying taxes to the mother country; ordinances forbidding the expansion of the colonies beyond the Appalachians; the provocation of enlisting runaway enslaved people in the British army, which “only deepened anti-British feeling among many southern colonists”; and other perceived injuries. There were wars within the Revolutionary War: Ward writes of the Continental campaign to wage war on the Cherokees and other southern Indigenous groups, with Thomas Jefferson saying, “Nothing will reduce those wretches so soon as pushing the war into the heart of their country.” Many familiar figures appear, including George Washington, whom King George III called “the greatest character of the age,” and Thomas Paine, whose Common Sense motivated the rebellious colonists to continue the fight with phrases such as “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” But Ward is also good at turning up little-known episodes, such as Benjamin Franklin’s convincing the French crown that aiding the revolutionaries’ cause would reduce Britain’s power everywhere, adding, “Every nation in Europe wishes to see Britain humbled.” American victory at Saratoga sealed the alliance. As the author notes, the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War did not end its strife: “The war had brought the states together, but peace threatened to tear them apart again” as they vied for position in the postwar world.

A well-written and thoughtful history shrouded in myth, but even more interesting when laid bare.