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American Revolutions

a Continental History, 1750-1804
Mar 04, 2019
A Great read! The book doesn't pull any punches when it comes to over-glorifying the Rebels and detailing the effects of the war on the less-well-covered people of America, including Blacks and Women. Any rebellion, military conflict and civil war, which was what the Revolution was, is going to have massacres and atrocities from both sides. The Rebels were not concerned with the freedom of speech of the Tories (sympathizers-with-the-British), and some Patriots who were well-positioned definitely benefited from victimizing Tories and seizing their properties; they destroyed the opposition's printing presses, opened mail, and tarred and feathered people, and worse. Also, the book doesn't sugar-coat the US people's "land-hunger" for Native American land...when Britain tried to stem the endless waves of white speculators, shysters, drunks, murderers and plain old pioneers going over the Appalachians into the Ohio Country and Kentucky and Tennessee, suddenly it was time to think about independence. Also, it's amazing that pre-revolutionary America was the most prosperous area of the World, and the most lightly-taxed in the British Empire. But Sam Adams wanted to launch his home-brew company....and Washington owned many thousands of acres of Indian land he wanted to sell. But it was a step in the right direction...on a path that continues.