Description
Book SynopsisThe American Revolution Reborn parts company with the American Revolution of our popular imagination and renders it as a time of intense ambiguity and frightening contingency. With an introduction by Spero and a conclusion by Zuckerman, this volume heralds a substantial and revelatory rebirth in the study of the American Revolution.
Trade Review"
The American Revolution Reborn is a mess. This is no criticism! In fact, by the lights of co-editor Patrick Spero, this is actually the volume's central aim. Rather than attempting to conjure up a fresh, grand narrative of revolutionary America, this group of fifteen contributors provides what Spero calls a 'messy' view of the revolution that deconstructs longstanding historiographical pieties. In doing so, the collection brings the lived experiences of individuals to the fore. Readers will discover an eclectic cast of characters who ordinarily exist on the periphery of revolutionary narratives." *
English Historical Review *
"This is the most ambitious state-of-the-field collection published since the American Revolution's bicentennial. Let's hope it is successful in charting new directions and arousing fruitful debates." * Thomas P. Slaughter, author of
Independence: The Tangled Roots of the American Revolution *
"The American Revolution appears in a fresh new light in this lively and wide-ranging collection of essays. The authors deftly explore a diverse and contested revolution rich in ironies and importance." * Alan Taylor, author of
American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 *
"
The American Revolution Reborn is a state-of-the-field collection. Its essays rank among the best Revolutionary scholarship to emerge since the collapse of the republican synthesis. The authors reject heroic narratives, repudiate nationalist analyses, and blur the edges of allegiance, identity, and indifference." * Benjamin H. Irvin, University of Arizona *
"The essays in this volume are careful, thought-provoking, and highly effective, and the conclusion issues a challenging and pungent demand that we abandon our comfortable assumptions." * Andrew Shankman, Rutgers University-Camden *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. Origins
—Patrick Spero
PART I. CIVIL WARS: CHALLENGING THE PATRIOTIC NARRATIVE
Chapter 1. War Stories: Remembering and Forgetting the American Revolution
—Michael A. McDonnell
Chapter 2. The Intimacies of Occupation: Loyalties, Compromise, and Betrayal in Revolutionary-Era Newport
—Travis Glasson
Chapter 3. Uncommon Cause: The Challenges of Disaffection in Revolutionary Pennsylvania
—Aaron Sullivan
Chapter 4. Loyalism, Citizenship, American Identity: The Shoemaker Family
—Kimberly Nath
Chapter 5. "Executioners of Their Friends and Brethren": Naval Impressment as an Atlantic Civil War
—Denver Brunsman
PART II. WIDER HORIZONS: DECENTERING THE NATIONALISTIC NARRATIVE
Chapter 6. British Union and American Revolution: Imperial Authoritye and the Multinational State
—Ned C. Landsman
Chapter 7. Revisiting the Bishop Controversy
—Katherine Carté Engel
Chapter 8. Empire's Vital Extremities: British Africa and the Coming of the American Revolution
—Bryan Rosenblithe
Chapter 9. The Great Awakening, Presbyterian Education, and the Mobilization of Power in the Revolutionary Mid- Atlantic
—Mark Boonshoft
PART III. NEW DIRECTIONS
Chapter 10. "This Is the Skin of a Whit[e] Man": Material Memories of Violence in Sullivan's Campaign
—Zara Anishanslin
Chapter 11. Environmental History and the War of Independence: Saltpeter and the Continental Army's Shortage of Gunpowder
—David C. Hsiung
Chapter 12. The Problem of Order and the Transfer of Slave Property in the Revolutionary South
—Matthew Spooner
PART IV. LEGACIES: THE AFTERLIFE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Chapter 13. The United States and the Transformation of Transatlantic Migration During the Age of Revolution and Emancipation
—Aaron Spencer Fogleman
Chapter 14. First Partition: The Troubled Origins of the Mason-Dixon Line
—Edward G. Gray
Chapter 15. The Power to Be Reborn
—David S. Shields
Conclusion. Beyond the Rebirth of the Revolution: Coming to Terms with Coming of Age
—Michael Zuckerman
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
