We begin our look at the American Revolution in Virginia with six blogs, beginning with political histories (2), then social (3) and military (1). “Founding of a Nation” surveys the internal politics of all thirteen colonies and Britain, especially the three largest: Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. “Revolution in Virginia” describes the politics and war campaigns within the Commonwealth. “Revolutionary America” explores the political dynamics within each state, among them in Congress and including the British perspective.
“Articles of Confederation” focuses on the social-constitutional history of the Revolution, and “Creation of the American Republic” outlines the “habits of thinking” in American intellectual history through the Articles to the Constitution. “Remembering the Revolution” surveys how the Founding was used politically in the subsequent years from 1783 to 1865.
See more reviews on Revolutionary Virginia history at our webpage at Revolution-Constitution-New Nation. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Virginia history divided by time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Founding of a Nation
The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution, 1763-1776 was originally written by Merrill Jensen in 1968 and its latest edition is reprinted in 2004. By Jensen’s account, it was as John Adams said, the
Revolution was in the minds of the people in the fifteen years 1760-1775 before the first shot was fired. Here we have a description of how politics and economy worked, and how the Americans saw them working in their internal colonial life.
Although he admits the Americans had a common political tradition of constitutional theory, Jensen describes an organizational triumph, a political process extending through fourteen distinct faction-ridden political societies including Britain’s. The story is a varied and contradictory account of imperial function and dysfunction. It resulted in Britain being obligated to accept the American’s decision for their independence, out of a vision for a “bright future” as the aspirationally named “United States” of America. Learn more to buy “Founding of a Nation” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Revolution in Virginia
The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 was written by John E. Selby in 1988. He emphasizes the political, administrative and military developments in Virginia. Major revolutionary ideas were pronounced and gained currency while the social order was disturbed perhaps least of all among the new states.
The oldest, largest and most populous British North American colony was riven by factional rivalries and personal jealousies when it came to mounting a defense against Britain. The autonomous County courts made for a kind of a federal system of governance in Virginia, even as intellectually in revolutionary republican terms there comes to be a written Constitution, a Declaration of Rights, disestablishment of the Anglican Church, and abolition of entail estates.
While Virginia was a mainstay for both northern and southern campaigns, the military events in Virginia are well described, both major and minor, at land and at sea, in the Tidewater and on the sometimes savage frontier. Learn more to buy “Revolution in Virginia” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Revolutionary America
Revolutionary America, 1763-1815: A Political History was written by Francis D. Cogliano in 2000 and reprinted in 2009. His narrative portraying the political and ideological struggle of the American Revolution spans the period from the colonial societies at the conclusion of the Seven Year’s War, through the Revolution, creation of the Constitution, Federalist era, to the successful defense of the new republic in the War of 1812.
It brings to light much of the recent historiography interpreting the American Revolution, and places diplomatic developments with Britain in context with challenges from the French and Spanish of the period as well.
The factional infighting among the Americans were hardly a consensus, and divergent elements are explored including a secession movement and the entrenchment of slavery. Though the new regime was manifestly primarily of white males, two final chapters focus on the participation of and the accommodation to women and blacks, slave and free. Learn more to buy “Revolutionary America” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774-1781 was written by Merrill Jensen in 1940, and reprinted in 1959. It is currently available in paperback, still cited in 21st century Virginia histories. Jensen looks at the revolutionary movement in the individual colonies amidst their social and economic forces to explain the struggle between those who enjoyed political privilege under British colonialism and those who did not.
The concrete issues faced in American politics in 1776 included attempts to write democratic and republican ideals of government into the newly formed state governments. The conservatives put forth the Dickenson Draft in 1776, but it was challenged and revised in the Continental Congresses until the formal adoption of the Articles in 1781.
The conflict among the states with western claims and the “landless” states is described as an all-important element of the Articles settlement, which was adopted in the subsequent Constitution. Learn more to buy “Articles of Confederation” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Creation of the American Republic
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 was written by Gordon S. Wood in 1969, reprinted in 1998. Wood begins with his intellectual history describing how the American conception of politics removed from a classical and medieval world of discussion into a recognizably modern democratic centered one within republican frames.
Wood spends the first sixty percent of his book laying the groundwork, accounting for the early American state and federal constitutions, how they were created and the development of their political ideology. It was both dynamic in each moment of evolution and cumulative in character, one of the “great utopian moments” of self-sacrifice in American history.
In the last half, Wood shows the emergence of the new Constitution, justified by a new political theory developed during the ratification debates. While the Constitution was intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the democratic excesses of the states, the new national government cut through the state governments to allow itself to rest on a more democratic foundation with wider popular participation than some of the state governments. Learn more to buy “Creation of the American Republic” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
Remembering the Revolution
Remembering the Revolution: Memory, History and Nation Making from Independence to the Civil War was edited in 2013 by Michael A. McDonnell and a team of international scholars of the Revolution and literary scholars. Seventeen essays in three sections trace the variable memory of the Revolution across time and space of American history.
As a tool of nation building, the “Revolutionary Generation” developed a consensus recollection of what to remember and what to forget to galvanize the citizenry and solidify the nation.
While keenly aware they were not measuring up, the “transmitting memories” of the antebellum generation justified the second war with England at the War of 1812, the industrialization of the North, the slave economy in the South and the westward territorial expansion for the “Empire of Liberty”.
In “Dividing Memories” section, the essays show how the varying meanings of the Revolution helped divide the nation, driving the country towards civil war. Learn more to buy “Remembering the Revolution” for your bookshelf at Amazon.com.
See more reviews on Revolutionary Virginia history at our webpage at Revolution-Constitution-New Nation. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Virginia history divided by time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.