Quote:
Originally Posted by Platapus
Dr. Howard Zinn's "A peoples history of the United States" is also a good reference. He delves into why many of the colonists were not in favour of fighting in the revolution and what purpose the Declaration of Independence was intended for.
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Zinn's book is
terribly biased, actually. It is bad history, and takes an anti-American tone at every possible turn. It was used (parts) in a university history class I took, and it is terribly sourced... really awful. You'd do better to learn American History via wikipedia than if that text were your only basis (unless you live abroad, and hate the US, then it will preach to the choir (even if it is contradicted by most all sources contemporary to the described events)).
Anything with "people's" in the title is a overt statement of the politics of the writer (ie: "people's republic," etc, and Zinn fits right into that company).
Better for the revolution might be
1776, or even
John Adams by McCullough (for very readable books that are also worth reading). Another very readable book is
His Excellency: George Washington. It shows Washington's motivations (partially economic) for deciding to become a revolutionary (nice because it is a biography that concentrates on the "important" bits as they related to his decisions as general and President, and not about every minute detail of his childhood, etc, like some other Washington tomes).
My take has always been that the colonies were
grossly mismanaged by the British. The situation in the colonies was nothing if not telegraphed before hand. You can't really transition from a model where almost anything goes, with nearly complete local autonomy to dictating from across the ocean. They created an independent-minded people, then didn't give them enough avenue for local power, AND power in Parliament. Had they gotten out in front of the situation, and given the US real representation in Parliament I don't think the Revolution would ever have happened in the first place. There were some in England in favor of such a solution, too, this is not just 20/20 hindsight.