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A sweeping narrative of the wartime experience, A People's History of the American Revolution is the first book to view the revolution through the eyes of common folk. Their stories have long been overlooked in the mythic telling of America's founding, but are crucial to a comprehensive understanding of the fight for independence. Now, the experiences of farmers, laborers, rank and file soldiers, women, Native Americans, and African Americans -- found in diaries, letters, memoirs and other long-ignored primary sources -- create a gritty account of rebellion, filled with ideals and outrage, loss, sacrifice, and sometimes scurrilous acts...but always ringing with truth.
- Sales Rank: #427102 in Books
- Published on: 2002-06-18
- Released on: 2002-06-18
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x .85" w x 5.31" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 528 pages
From Publishers Weekly
California-based writer Raphael (An Everyday History of Somewhere; etc.) offers an accessible study of the American Revolution, as part of a series edited by Howard Zinn, and in the tradition of his A People's History of the United States. Most books on the Revolution focus on generals and kings, although scholars have, in the last two decades, turned some of their attention to the lives of ordinary people. Raphael transforms the best insights of that scholarship into a lively, readable narrative. Yes, kings and generals were important, but it was the people at large who brought about American independence. Even before the war started, ordinary people were involved in protesting British abuses, refusing to consume tea and other British luxury items. Women supported the Revolution by spinning their own cloth (rather than buying it from Britain) and working the farms their husbands left behind when the militia called them to the front. Young men eager to "git" their rights uncomplainingly subsisted on moldy bread while they camped out in the snow, waiting to encounter Redcoats. White colonists weren't the only Americans affected by the war. Abenaki Indians, for example, were paid to fight alongside the rebels. Raphael also shows how many slaves, infected with the freedom-fighting spirit, bid unsuccessfully for their own independence via insurrections, escape and reasoning. Both English and American armies wanted the slaves' loyalties, and the slaves, in turn, believed that if they served the winning side, they would gain freedom. Moving from broad overviews to stories of small groups or individuals, Raphael's study is impressive in both its sweep and its attention to the particular. The book will delight, educate and entertain all Revolution buffs. (Apr.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Raphael (Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America) narrates the American Revolution from the eyes of the common people who, without wealth, authority, or privilege defined and shaped the Revolution. He argues that the Revolution was largely the product not of the patrician classes of Virginia or New England but of the common people. Through letters, diaries, and other accounts, Raphael shows these individualsDwhite women and men of the farming and laboring classes, free and enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, loyalists, and religious pacifistsDacting for or against the Revolution and enduring a war that compounded the difficulties of everyday life and that resulted in a higher percentage of American civilian and military deaths than any of America's other wars except the Civil War. Written for the lay reader, this work synthesizes recent historical scholarship on the Revolution and maintains the high standards of editor Howard Zinn's "People's History" series. Strongly recommended for public and academic libraries.DCharles L. Lumpkins, Pennsylvania State Univ., State College
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Not a narrative of battles, not an analysis of causes, not a paean to patriotism, not a tarring of Tories, Raphael's volume instead collects the experiences of ordinary people during the American Revolution and sutures them into a story. And that story is that the rebellion and war inescapably influenced everyone--farmers, townspeople, women, Indians, free blacks and enslaved blacks, plutocrats and proletarians. And a list including such categories indicates the class-consciousness of this, the inaugural volume in a series overseen by leftist historian Howard Zinn. A synthesis of radical historiography on the Revolution already exists in Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992), so the unique value of Raphael's work lies in its mining, from extant primary sources, of the extraordinary recollections of ordinary witnesses to history. Patron demand for Raphael's tome may never be as high as that for the most popular Revolutionary War narratives and biographies, yet this book constitutes a substantial alternative to "great-man" approaches to the upheaval. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
35 of 43 people found the following review helpful.
History you can believe - Imagine that !
By Daryl Anderson
What great news to hear that Howard Zinn and the New Press are creating a "People's History" series!
Even better news is the outstanding job Ray Raphael has done of this first effort in that series. He has taken on the overall approach of the 'original', Zinn's "People's History of the United States" and applied it to the "creation myths" of our country in a way that creates real history which is captivating even as it strips the gloss from the schoolboy history handed on for generations.
The really nice thing is that Raphael has accomplished this with a voice that is unique to himself and to this book. No mere expansion of a chapter from the earlier Zinn book, this. Even having read Zinn's book, I found that this one retained the same ability to amaze me with fundamental reexamination of core beliefs.
At its center this book is, more than anything else, a study of how revolution happens. As such it is important reading for anyone who considers how fundamental change might happen in this country, if ever, again. The real myth of our history is not so much the focus on individual heroics or great battles as the implicit claim that our revolution fell into place so neatly, so quickly. Somewhere between chapters 3 and 5 in our history books the Brits passed some taxes, the Colonists rose up in righteous indignation, the battle was at hand - then won.
Raphael demonstrates at length, through original sources created by regular folks, that the whole business was much longer work than that. People don't just rise up overnight, casting off habits of mind and cultural expectations of what can and cannot be done. People don't just sit down and pen some pamphlets or high-sounding declarations and raise armies.
This book shows how, over decades, a broad sweep of reaction against oppressive institutions by everyday people built a solid groundwork which meant that the final "revolution" was neither unexpected nor un-practiced. He describes how many earlier uprisings, revolts, and proto-revolutions radicalized the populace and eroded assumptions about rights of elites. He describes how the vast majority of disenfranchised poor played a fundamental role in shifting those assumptions.
Throughout he reminds us of what a complicated business it was. From the broad in scope - the impossibility of raising a standing army from reluctant and other-committed farmers and family men, (and the consequential injection of a military draft and a messy cash-buyout business) to the narrow - why the "tea party" energized so many common folk to whom tea was the ultimate class icon.
Thoughtful people have learned to be skeptical of delivered history. But it really helps to have something real to counterbalance mere skepticism. This history is real, this is eye-opening stuff, this is the rest of the story.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
this is a the perfect book for an introduction to the how the American ...
By Nick and Lauren
Written in easy-to-understand prose, with moderate vocabulary and captivating historic vignettes, this is a the perfect book for an introduction to the how the American Revolution affected the common people. This includes the more marginalized groups, like Women, Native Americans and African Americans. An excellent starting point for delving deeper into the struggles of the masses during the war. The book includes a plethora of quotes from first and secondary sources, and facts abound. Sometimes, the prose gets bogged down in those facts and quotes, but they help assure the reader of the through research Raphael did for this work. It is important to remember that even this is, again, only part of the story. Granted it is a side not often told, and that alone makes it worth reading, but often the choices made by those in charge make no sense to those following order. This doesn't excuse the out-come, but it behooves us to remember to read and study all sides while forming an opinion. That being said, this book is an excellent addition to a library about the American Revolution.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
ok but not the greatest
By Yalensian
Raphael's goal is an admirable one, and his topic is of great importance to any study of the American Revolution. Indeed, the "common people" (including women, slaves, and Indians) are too often overlooked in histories of the period, and their roles were critical. For example, the HUGE influence slaves had on how the war was fought in the South is sadly ignored, despite the fact that no understanding of that aspect is complete without it. That said, the book is not the whole story and is best read in combination with a work focusing on the "great men" and events "at the top"--perhaps Gordon Wood or Bernard Bailyn. Such a combination, I think, would provide a fuller portrayal. My major complaint with the book is its inclusion of page upon page of source material. I understand that for some this is a strong point of the work and that Raphael is trying to let these common folk speak for themselves. But the extraordinarily long quotations (sometimes pages in length) prevent Raphael's own voice and analysis from coming through. And in my opinion, the lengthy quotations from secondary sources could have been eliminated and summarized. He would have been well advised to limit the direct quotations and focus on a more in-depth analysis. After all, if one wanted to read straight primary sources, there are collections of documents available. But these flaws notwithstanding, the book deserves a read, if only to fill in the gaps left by high school history courses.
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