The American Revolution: A History (20 page)

On the diplomacy of the Revolution the older standard account is Samuel Flagg Bemis,
The Diplomacy of the American Revolution
(1935). See also William C. Stinchcombe,
The American Revolution and the French Alliance
(1969), and Jonathan Dull,
A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution
(1985). Richard B. Morris,
The Peacemakers
(1965), is a full study of the peace negotiations. For a discussion of the Model Treaty and the Americans’ new attitude toward diplomacy, see Felix Gilbert,
To the Farewell Address
(1961).

For a summary of the history-writing covering the eighteenth-century tradition of republicanism, see Robert E. Shalhope, “Toward a Republican Synthesis: The Emergence of an Understanding of Republicanism in American Historiography,”
The William and Mary Quarterly,
3d ser., 29 (1972). Studies emphasizing the peculiar character of this tradition include J. G. A. Pocock,
The Machiavellian Moment
(1975); Franco Venturi,
Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment
(1971); Gerald Stourzh,
Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government
(1970); and Gordon S. Wood,
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787
(1969). Garry Wills,
Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
(1978), stresses the importance of Scottish moral sense philosophy and the natural sociability of people in Jefferson’s thought. But see also Andrew Brustein,
Sentimental Democracy: The Evolution of America’s Romantic Self-Image
(1999). Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(1997), emphasizes the contributions of the Congress and other Americans to the Declaration. On the origins of the Americans’ conception of the individual’s relationship to the state, see James H. Kettner,
The Development of American Citizenship, 1608–1870
(1978). For the influence of antiquity, see Carl J. Richard,
The Founders and the Classics
(1994).

The fullest account of state constitution-making and politics is Allan Nevins,
The American States During and After the Revolution, 1775–1789
(1924). Among the most significant of the state studies are Philip A. Crowl,
Maryland During and After the Revolution
(1943); Jean B. Lee,
The Price of Nationhood: The American Revolution in Charles County
[Md.] (1994); Richard P. McCormick,
Experiment in Independence: New Jersey in the Critical Period, 1781–1789
(1950); Irwin H. Polishook,
Rhode Island and the Union, 1774–1795
(1969); Robert J. Taylor,
Western Massachusetts in the Revolution
(1954); and Alfred F. Young,
The Democratic Republicans of New York: The Origins, 1763–1797
(1967). Merrill Jensen, in
The Articles of Confederation . . . 1774–1781
(1940) stresses the achievements of the Articles. The best history of the Continental Congress is Jack N. Rakove,
The Beginnings of National Politics
(1979).

The starting point for appreciating the social changes of the Revolution is the short essay by J. Franklin Jameson,
The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement
(1926). For modern appraisals, see Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds.,
The Transforming Hand of Revolution
(1995). J. Kirby Martin,
Men in Rebellion: Higher Government Leaders and the Coming of the American Revolution
(1973); Jackson T. Main,
The Upper House in Revolutionary America, 1763–1788
(1967); and Main, “Government by the People: The American Revolution and the Democratization of the Legislatures,”
The William and Mary Quarterly,
3d ser., 28 (1966), document the displacement of elites in politics during the Revolution. Chilton Williamson,
American Suffrage from Property to Democracy, 1760–1860
(1960), describes the expansion of voting rights. A neat account of Concord, Massachusetts, in the Revolution is Robert A. Gross,
The Minutemen and Their World
(1976).

A helpful survey of American social history is Rowland Berthoff,
An Unsettled People
(1971). But it has not replaced the encyclopedic History of American Life Series edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger and Dixon Ryan Fox. The volume covering the Revolutionary era is Evarts B. Greene,
The Revolutionary Generation, 1763–1790
(1943). Population developments are summarized by J. Potter, “The Growth of Population in America, 1700–1860,” in David Glass and D. E. Eversley, eds.,
Population in History
(1965).

For economic developments, see the appropriate chapters in John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard,
The Economy of British America, 1607–1789
(1985). On the commercial effects of the Revolution, see Curtis P. Nettles,
The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775–1815
(1962); Robert A. East,
Business Enterprise in the American Revolutionary Era
(1938); Thomas M. Doerflinger,
A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia
(1986); John J. McCusker et al., eds.,
The Economy of Early America: The Revolutionary Period, 1763–1790
(1988); and Cathy Matson and Peter S. Onuf,
A Union of Interests
(1989).

On the plight of the loyalists, see Wallace Brown,
The Good Americans
(1969), and Mary Beth Norton,
The British-Americans: The Loyalist Exiles in England, 1774–1789
(1972). On the Indians, see Colin G. Calloway,
The American Revolution in Indian Country
(1995); and Richard White,
The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815
(1991).

On the Enlightenment, see Henry May,
The Enlightenment in America
(1976), and Robert A. Ferguson,
The American Enlightenment, 1750–1820
(1994). The standard survey is Russell B. Nye,
The Cultural Life of the New Nation, 1776–1830
(1960). See also Kenneth Silverman,
A Cultural History of the American Revolution
(1976), and Joseph J. Ellis,
After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture
(1979). On Freemasonry, see the superb book by Steven C. Bullock,
Revolutionary Brotherhood . . . 1730–1840
(1996). A particularly important study of education is Carl F. Kaestle,
The Evolution of an Urban School System
(1973). On the forming of American nationhood, see David Waldstreicher,
In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes . . . 1776–1820
(1997). Ruth H. Bloch,
Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756–1800
(1985), and Nathan O. Hatch,
The Democratization of Christianity
(1989) illuminate the millennial and popular evangelical movements in the Revolution.

On women, see Mary Beth Norton,
Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750–1800
(1980); Linda Kerber,
Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America
(1980); and Rosalie Zagarri,
A Woman’s Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution
(1995). Benjamin Quarles,
The Negro in the American Revolution
(1961), and Sylvia Frey,
Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age
(1991) are the best studies of the contribution of blacks to the Revolution. On slavery and opposition to it, see Philip Morgan,
Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry
(1998); Ira Berlin,
Many Thousands Gone
(1998); Winthrop Jordan,
White over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550–1812
(1968); and David Brion Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823
(1975). On the abolition of slavery in the North, see Arthur Zilversmit,
The First Emancipation
(1967).

John Fiske,
The Critical Period of American History
(1888), popularized the Federalist view of the Confederation for the nineteenth century. Merrill Jensen,
The New Nation
(1950), minimizes the crisis of the 1780s and explains the movement for the Constitution as the work of a small but dynamic minority. Clarence L. Ver Steeg,
Robert Morris, Revolutionary Financier
(1954), is the major study of that important figure.

Forrest McDonald,
E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776–1790
(1965), describes the commercial scrambling by the Americans in the 1780s. The best account of the army and the Newburgh Conspiracy is Richard H. Kohn,
Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802
(1975). Frederick W. Marks III,
Independence on Trial
(1973), analyzes the foreign problems contributing to the making of the Constitution. The best short survey of the Confederation period is still Andrew C. McLaughlin,
The Confederation and the Constitution, 1783–1789
(1905). But see also Richard B. Morris,
The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789
(1987), and Merrill Jensen,
The New Nation
(1950).

Charles Beard’s book
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution
(1913) sought to explain the Constitution as something other than the consequence of high-minded idealism. It became the most influential history book ever written in America. Beard saw the struggle over the Constitution as a “deep-seated conflict between a popular party based on paper money and agrarian interests and a conservative party centered in the towns and resting on financial, mercantile, and personal property interests generally.” While Beard’s particular proof for his thesis—that the Founders held federal securities that they expected would appreciate in value under a new national government—has been demolished, especially by Forrest McDonald,
We the People
(1958), his general interpretation of the origins of the Constitution still casts a long shadow. Jackson T. Main,
Political Parties Before the Constitution
(1974), finds a “cosmopolitan”-“localist” split within the states over the Constitution. Gordon S. Wood,
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787
(1969), working through the ideas, discovers a similar social, but not strictly speaking a “class,” division over the Constitution.

The best history of the Convention is still Max Farrand,
The Framing of the Constitution of the United States
(1913), which sees the Constitution as “a bundle of compromises” designed to meet specific defects of the Articles. For a brief authoritative biography of the “father of the Constitution,” see Jack N. Rakove,
James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic
(1991). Rakove’s book
Original Meanings
(1996) is crucial for anyone interested in what the Constitution meant to the Founders.

Max Farrand, ed.,
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
(4 vols., 1911, 1937); and Merrill Jensen et al., eds.,
The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution
(1976–) are collections of the important documents. Jacob Cooke, ed.,
The Federalist
(1961), is the best edition of these papers. Sympathetic studies of the Anti-Federalists are Jackson T. Main,
The Antifederalists . . . 1781–1788
(1961), and Saul Cornell,
The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788–1828
(1999). See also Robert A. Rutland,
The Birth of the Bill of Rights, 1776–1791
(1955). The papers of the Founders—Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, John Adams, Madison, Washington, and others—are already published or are currently being published in mammoth scholarly editions.