Independence

"What do we mean by the Revolution?" John Adams asked Thomas Jefferson in 1815. "The war? That was no part of the Revolution. It was only an effect and consequence of it." As the distinguished historian Thomas P. Slaughter shows in this landmark history, the roots of the Revolution went back even further than Adams may have realized. In Slaughter's account, colonists in British North America starting in the early seventeenth century chafed under imperial rule. Though successive British kings called them lawless, they insisted on their moral courage and political principles, and regarded their independence as a great virtue. Their struggles to define this independence took many forms: from New England and Nova Scotia to New York and Pennsylvania and south to the Carolinas, colonists resisted unsympathetic royal governors, smuggled to evade British duties, and organized for armed uprisings. In the eighteenth century-especially after victories over France-the British were eager to crush these rebellions, but American opposition only intensified. In Independence, Slaughter resets and clarifies the terms of this remarkable development, showing how and why a critical mass of colonists determined that they could not be both independent and subject to the British Crown. By 1775-76, they had become revolutionaries-willing to go to war to defend their independence, not simply to gain it.

About the Author :
Thomas P. Slaughter is the author of The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition (Hill and Wang, 2008) and four other books. He is the Arthur R. Miller Professor at the University of Rochester and the editor of Reviews in American History.

Review :
"Thomas P. Slaughter has done a magnificent job in reinterpreting how the United States was born, and he ably shows us how inflamed the American colonists were by the British Crown from the seventeenth century on. His scholarship is impeccable. I highly recommend his book." --Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University and historian for CBS News "Part of the task of the historian is to navigate the reader through the mists of the past and arrive at a new place of understanding. Thomas Slaughter has done just that with his new interpretation of the American Revolution, Independence: The Tangled Roots of the American Revolution. The book takes the reader beyond the familiar area of what happened in the revolution and instead focuses on the less familiar areas of why . . . Slaughter's book provides a wealth of research that is fastened together into a coherent, brisk narrative. Anyone interested in learning about the roots of conflict that help explain the American Revolution should make sure to read this book." --Kasey S. Pipes, The Dallas Morning News "Slaughter's achievement, bringing together an enormous amount of material in a readable . . . narrative, is formidable." --Andrew Cayton, The Chronicle of Higher Education "Only bold historians will attempt one-volume histories of the American Revolution's origins; Slaughter brings his off brilliantly. Rarely, if ever, has this history been told with such graceful readability, freshness, and clarity. It's mostly narrative history, with Slaughter, a biographer and historian of American naturalists and the early republic, avoiding academic arguments while introducing some of the latest academic perspectives. The major one is to place the coming of the Revolution in its world-historical context and show how colonial events were linked to developments in India, Europe, and elsewhere. Slaughter's . . . organizing theme is applied lightly and never intrudes on the hard-to-put-down tale, filled with apt quotations and captivating human portraits . . . As a political, event-filled history of its subject, this masterful work is unsurpassed." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Mr. Slaughter's book makes one thing refreshingly clear. Americans of the 1770s did not seek to destroy or to cast off but to claim what they assumed had been theirs all along." --Barton Swaim, The Wall Street Journal "The panoramic narrative moves from clashes with the French in Canada, to dark alleys in Manhattan, to conflicts in the backwoods of Pennsylvania and North Carolina, disputes over land claims in New Jersey, discussions of internal political struggles in Maryland, various Colonial-wide boycotts, religious controversies in Virginia, then across the globe to India, back again to the waters of Narragansett Bay and Boston's rowdy waterfront taverns, and ending with an in-depth analysis of the debates in Parliament over what to do with the 'American spirit, ' as Edmund Burke put it . . . Slaughter's skills as a writer keeps the narrative moving. Slaughter will force even the most veteran student of the Revolution to reconceptualize the always captivating origin story." --Eric J. Chaput, The Providence Journal "Finely researched . . . Slaughter looks carefully at the influence on the colonies of Britain's empire-making across the globe, from India to the Ohio Valley, Nova Scotia to the Caribbean . . . The author underscores the vastly different views about independence versus separation held by the British and the colonists. The British were bewildered by the colonists' pursuit of anarchy and confusion, while the colonists were first and foremost deeply rooted in a sense of personal liberty of conscience above any act of government. Erudite and fascinating." --Kirkus "While the book bears a superficial resemblance to a more general work on the subject . . . it goes significantly beyond by maintaining a clear concentration on the transformation of the concept of independence into the reason for armed resistance and warfare. The scope of the book is impressive, covering beyond the original 13 colonies. For example, Slaughter uses Nova Scotia to illustrate the emerging tension between British desire to control and colonists' de facto independence on the fringe of the empire . . . A notable and stimulating title for both general readers and specialists interested not just in the immediate years leading to revolution but the many decades before." --Charles K. Piehl, Library Journal