What's the British take on the Revolutionary war?

Takeda Shingen · 01-26-11, 06:23 PM

I know that this is about the UK, but as an American I hear two sides. The first is the standard ultra-patriotic spiel about the rag-tag American patriots casting off the shackles of British oppression and tyrany to give birth to the greatest nation in the history of man. The other is neatly summed up by the quote from the film Dazed and Confused, charcterizing the revolution as a movement of aristocratic slave-owning white men who didn't want to pay their taxes.

For me, the truth is probably inbetween. Taxation without representation probably wasn't so cool, and the motives of the new American 'aristocracy' were probably less than altruistic. I also think that a number of my fellow Americans also forget that we needed the French to attain victory, and that victory wasn't so much total as it was the British throwing up their hands and going home.

01-26-11, 06:23 PM	#8
Takeda Shingen Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2000 Posts: 8,643 Downloads: 19 Uploads: 0	I know that this is about the UK, but as an American I hear two sides. The first is the standard ultra-patriotic spiel about the rag-tag American patriots casting off the shackles of British oppression and tyrany to give birth to the greatest nation in the history of man. The other is neatly summed up by the quote from the film Dazed and Confused, charcterizing the revolution as a movement of aristocratic slave-owning white men who didn't want to pay their taxes. For me, the truth is probably inbetween. Taxation without representation probably wasn't so cool, and the motives of the new American 'aristocracy' were probably less than altruistic. I also think that a number of my fellow Americans also forget that we needed the French to attain victory, and that victory wasn't so much total as it was the British throwing up their hands and going home.