Faces Of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence - Hardcover

Bailyn, Bernard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 039449895X ISBN 13: 9780394498959

Publisher: Knopf, 1990

Synopsis

A portrait of the background, origins, character, and legacy of the American Revolution answers perennial questions concerning the event and its causes

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Reviews

The American Revolution was far from inevitable, argues Bailyn, Harvard professor and Pulitizer Prize-winning historian ( Voyagers to the West ), who contends that ideological passion and human will tipped the scales in favor of revolt. Hastening the rupture were John Adams's conviction that British policies were evil and bankrupt Quaker corset-maker Tom Paine's aggressive attack on those who feared severing ties with Mother England. In the book's eight masterful biographical sketches, we also meet Thomas Jefferson, shedding his "deep conventionality" for pragmatic political decision-making, and Boston shopkeeper Harbottle Dorr, compiler of a massive, annotated dossier of newspapers and pamphlets. Four thematic essays highlight the antifederalist challenge to the Constitution and the reactionary muddle in Britain whose "every major institution was inadequate to its task." History Book Club alternate.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This book of essays comprises nine previously published articles on the American Revolution and an unpublished paper on the Constitution. Restating his well-known consensus thesis, Bailyn contends that an American people, united by a democratic, individualistic spirit, inevitably separated from the centralized authority of the British king and, refining their ideology, created a national government which safeguarded personal liberty. Though sometimes providing a compelling explanation for the motivations of Revolutionary leaders, Bailyn generally offers a simplistic view which largely ignores the many complex, conflicting interests within and between the American elite and the general populace. He adds little to his Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (LJ 4/15/67). Recommended for historiographical purposes. History Book Club alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/90.
- David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 039449895X
• ISBN 13: 9780394498959
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296