8/8: Disunion and the disrupted. 8/8: The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783, by Joseph J. Ellis, Ph.D. Hardcover – September 21, 2021 auu
Aug 07, 2022, 02:33 AM
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@Batchelorshow
8/8: Disunion and the disrupted. 8/8: The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783, by Joseph J. Ellis, Ph.D. Hardcover – September 21, 2021
https://www.amazon.com/Cause-American-Revolution-Discontents-1773-1783/dp/1631498983
Countering popular histories that romanticize the “Spirit of ’76,” Ellis demonstrates that the rebels fought under the mantle of “The Cause,” a mutable, conveniently ambiguous principle that afforded an umbrella under which different, and often conflicting, convictions and goals could coexist. Neither an American nation nor a viable government existed at the end of the war. In fact, one revolutionary legacy regarded the creation of such a nation, or any robust expression of government power, as the ultimate betrayal of The Cause. This legacy alone rendered any effective response to the twin tragedies of the founding―slavery and the Native American dilemma―problematic at best.
Written with the vivid and muscular prose for which Ellis is known, and with characteristically trenchant insight, The Cause marks the culmination of a lifetime of engagement with the founding era. A landmark work of narrative history, it challenges the story we have long told ourselves about our origins as a people, and as a nation.
6 illustrations; 7 maps
@Batchelorshow
8/8: Disunion and the disrupted. 8/8: The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783, by Joseph J. Ellis, Ph.D. Hardcover – September 21, 2021
https://www.amazon.com/Cause-American-Revolution-Discontents-1773-1783/dp/1631498983
Countering popular histories that romanticize the “Spirit of ’76,” Ellis demonstrates that the rebels fought under the mantle of “The Cause,” a mutable, conveniently ambiguous principle that afforded an umbrella under which different, and often conflicting, convictions and goals could coexist. Neither an American nation nor a viable government existed at the end of the war. In fact, one revolutionary legacy regarded the creation of such a nation, or any robust expression of government power, as the ultimate betrayal of The Cause. This legacy alone rendered any effective response to the twin tragedies of the founding―slavery and the Native American dilemma―problematic at best.
Written with the vivid and muscular prose for which Ellis is known, and with characteristically trenchant insight, The Cause marks the culmination of a lifetime of engagement with the founding era. A landmark work of narrative history, it challenges the story we have long told ourselves about our origins as a people, and as a nation.
6 illustrations; 7 maps