Thursday, September 21, 2006

Advice and Suggestions, Please.


I really should know more about what you lot call the Revolutionary War and what my lot call The American War of Independence. I just read a short book on the writing of the constitiution (which Country Mouse picked up from her school book club when she was in 7th grade) and it was very interesting but only alluded in passing to the great struggle that preceeded it. I've read the first of Tom Paine's "Crisis" pamphlets ("These are the times that try men's souls..." and so on) but that's more about stiring up the chaps than recounting the story of the revolution. So...

NEEDED: advice on a good primer on the Revolutionary period from the end of the French & Indian War in 1763 to the Peace of Paris in 1783. Nothing too tabloidy or poppy, nor anything that resembles the Hollywood revisionism of The Patriot. Something in the style of a McCullough or a Kearns Goodwin, but not as faux heroic as an Ambrose. I will however keep an open mind and am eager to read your suggestions. Thank you.

2 comments:

Mondale said...

Have you read Ray Raphael's 'A people's history of the American revolution'?
That tyitle may not be correct but he's defo the author.

Listmaker said...

i like his name.
that fairly recent bestselling 1776 book might be good, right?

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