HISTORIOGRAPHY of the American Revolution Debates, Ideas, and the Quest for Understanding, 1793-2012

So what the !@#$ is Historiography The study of the historical writing on a particular subject. A cure for insomnia

So what? History is “a set of lies agreed upon by historians.” -Bonaparte We’re all historiographers—struggle for control of official memory. Are the colonists “rebels”, “patriots”, “freedom fighters,” or “self-interested elites?” “Just the facts, mam.”—even straight narrative is an interpretation. Focusing on the origins of the American Revolution exclude much important stuff from consideration

Basic Interpretations of the American Revolution Comparative School Whig School Imperial School Progressive School Consensus School Neo-Whig School Neo-Progressive School Recent Trends and Notable Books

Comparative School R. R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 (1959 and 1964) Mlada Bukovansky, Legitimacy and Power Politics: the American and French Revolutions in International Political Culture (2009) Willem Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History (2009)

Whig School American Revolution was “a movement for liberty in opposition to British tyranny.” David Ramsay—History of the American Revolution (1793—2 vols.) Mercy Otis Warren—History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the Revolution (1805—3 vols.) George Bancroft—History of the United States (1834-1874—10 vols.)

Mercy Warren and Geo. Bancroft

Imperial School Britain never intended to impose tyranny—Revolution was a function of trans-Atlantic misunderstandings, bureaucratic bungling, and Parliamentary mismanagement. Herbert Levi Osgood—American Colonies in the 17th Century (1904-1907—4 vols.); American Colonies in the 18th Century (1924—4 vols.) George Louis Beer—Colonial Policies (1907) Charles McLean Andrews—The Colonial Background of the American Revolution (1924) Lawrence Henry Gibson—British Empire, 1748-1765 (15 vols.)

Progressive School Self-interests compelled Revolution: “Conflicts between merchants and farmers, easterners and westerners, city-dwellers and country folk, aristocrats and democrats, creditors and debtors” . . . “not so much home rule as who should rule at home.” Charles A. Beard—An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913) Carl Lotus Becker—The Declaration of Independence (1922) Arthur Meier Schlesinger—The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763-1776 (1918) Merrill M. Jensen-- The Articles of Confederation : An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774-1781 (1959)

Consensus School Differences among white male colonists were minor—founders all supported a “liberal, Lockean ideal of a republic grounded on widespread property ownership and a state committed to fosterin individual rights and opportunities.” Louis M. Hartz Richard Hofstadter

Neo-Whig School Ideology was not pretextual; it was the real prism through which colonists interpreted the New Imperial Policy. Bernard Bailyn—The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) Gordon S. Wood—The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (1969)

Neo-Progressive School Despite a republican consensus, struggles between popular and elite forces drove the events of the era. Gary Nash—Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America (1974)

Some among Many Notable Newer Books Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order (Anson G. Phelps Lectureship on Early American History) (1984) Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1992) Marjoleine Kars, Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary North Carolina (2001) T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution : How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (2004) Alfred & Ruth Blumrosen, Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the Revolution. (2005) Colin Calloway, A Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America (2007) Joseph J. Ellis, First Family: Abigail and John Adams (2010) Michal Jan Rozbicki, Culture and Liberty in the Age of the American Revolution (2011) Patrick Griffin, America's Revolution (2012)

“Gotta say something about Gordon” 1933-