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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.3
EAN num: 9780195315882
ISBN number: 019531588X
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 752
Printing Date: March 09, 2007
Publishing house: Oxford University Press, USA
Sale Popularity Level: 11254
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The very first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically acclaimed volume--a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize--offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
Beginning with the French and Indian War and continuing to the election of George Washington as very first president, Robert Middlekauff offers a panoramic history of the conflict between England and America, highlighting the drama and anguish of the colonial struggle for independence. Combining the political and the personal, he provides a compelling account of the key events that precipitated the war, from the Stamp Act to the Tea Act, tracing the gradual gathering of American resistance that culminated in the Boston Tea Party and 'the shot heard 'round the world.' The heart of the book features a vivid description of the eight-year-long war, with gripping accounts of battles and campaigns, ranging from Bunker Hill and Washington's crossing of the Delaware to the brilliant victory at Hannah's Cowpens and the final triumph at Yorktown, paying particular attention to what made men fight in these bloody encounters. The book concludes with an insightful look at the making of the Constitution in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the struggle over ratification. Through it all, Middlekauff gives the reader a vivid sense of how the colonists saw these events and the importance they gave to them. Common soldiers and great generals, Sons of Liberty and African slaves, town committee-men and representatives in congress--all receive their due. And there are particularly insightful portraits of such figures as Sam and John Adams, James Otis, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and many others. This new edition has been revised and expanded, with fresh coverage of topics such as mob reactions to British measures before the War, military medicine, women's role in the Revolution, American Indians, the different kinds of war fought by the Americans and the British, and the ratification of the Constitution. The book also has a new epilogue and an updated bibliography.
The cause for which the colonists fought, liberty and independence, was glorious indeed. Here is an equally glorious narrative of an event that changed the world, capturing the profound and passionate struggle to found a free nation.
The Oxford History of the United States
The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, a New York Times bestseller, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. The Atlantic Monthly has praised it as 'the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship,' a series that 'synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book.' Conceived under the general editorship of C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter, and now under the editorship of David M. Kennedy, this renowned series blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative.
Amazon.com Review:
Many histories of the American Revolution are written as if on stained glass, with George Washington's forces of good battling King George III's redcoat devils. The actual events were, of course, far more complex than that, and Robert Middlekauff undertakes the difficult task of separating the real from the mythic with great success. From him we learn that England taxed the colonials so heavily in an endeavor to retire the massive debt incurred in defending those very colonials against other powers, notably France; that the writing of the Constitution was delayed for two years while states argued among themselves in the face of massive military losses; and that demographic shifts during the Revolution did much to increase America's ethic diversity at an early and decisive time. Vividly told, this is a superb account of the nation's founding.
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Rated by buyers 
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Middlekauf's book is the best single treatment of the American Revolution in print. He is fair and equitable in his treatment of all sides in this conflict. In fact, he might have gone too far in these efforts. One puts the book down feeling the British officials were often wronged by the American colonialists. Middlekauf devotes about half the book to the coming of the war, forty percent to the military conflict itself and about ten percent to the post-war years, including the writing of the U.S. Constitution. He gives everyone their moment in the story, including loyalists, sailors, and militiamen, but the core of his account is the battle between the two conventional armies. He breaks the mold and gives enough attention to actions in the South to inform his readers that the war was not one by New England alone. Perhaps the best thing about this book is how Middlekauf integrates political and military issues together. He shows that this conflict was political in nature and how military operations affected sentiment in both America and the United Kingdom and how that sentiment often determined what a commander could or had to do. This integration is one of the reasons the U.S. Naval War College uses this book as a required reading despite its limited discusion of naval operations.
Rated by buyers -
This standard work provides a good general read on the events surrounding the Rev War. The author writes well, which makes reading the sometimes detailed narrative a joy. Like most American works on the subject it is very patriotic, and more than a little biased in its views.
The core of the book centers on the war itself, and while the author omits some details, he does provide good background information. The constant references to the Glorious Cause the rebels were involved in became a bit annoying after a while, and such sentiments do reveal the very strong bias of the author in telling his story. Basically you're not going to find many works that give a balanced perspective of both sides in this conflict. So for a starting place this book does provide a comprehensive background and a good narrative of the war. Some chapters do go behind the scenes to try and examine the sinews of the war and these do make for good reading.
Over all a classic and quite extensive work that provides a good read on the events leading up to and including the Revolution, with some good emphisas on the military campaigns. Those readers just wanting to learn about the Founding Fathers and the political reasons of the conflict might find the book strays from those points, but for a comprehensive albeit pro-rebel account this is a classic. The story is carried through the conclusion of the war up to the internal bickerings that result in the framming of the Constitution. Cogent arguments concerning why the colonies opted to surrender their powers in favor of a more centralized government make for instructional reading. Discussions about Virginia and the status of slaves and why these issues were not included in the Constitution make for interesting discussion. The author is not a revisionist, so his views try to examine these issues within the context of their time. While the great men of events get their due, much is still left from the perspective of the commoner. This book makes for a very good starting place for any study of the Rev War period.
Rated by buyers 
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This is a good, well written history of the War of Independence primarily from the American veiwpoint. Siince there is much already written about this subject, there are fewer new insights than in some of the other books in this series. The best books in this Oxford series are "What has God wrought" and "Freedom from Fear."
Rated by buyers -
"The Glorious Cause" is an excellent secondary source on the Revolutionary Era. However, in this review I will focus on the presentation of the Kindle edition rather than the book's contents. The Kindle edition has some problems.
The biggest issue is that in two places, large chunks of text appear out of order (e.g., toward the end of Chapter 21 there's a sudden break mid-sentence, followed by several pages of text that belongs at the start of Chapter 22).
The other issues are ones that seem to be shared by many non-fiction Kindle books. The maps and the index are illegible. Also, while the notes are linked (a good thing), you can't page through the notes themselves. Thus, if you click on a particular note and find that it reads "ibid.," there's no easy way to acess the preceding notes and find out what source "ibid." is referring to.
Notwithstanding these problems, I'm delighted that Oxford has made "The Glorious Cause" available as a Kindle book. Oxford has been one of the most active Kindle publishers and should be praised for jumping in.
Rated by buyers -
I have read a few books on the American Revolution, but they always leave me somewhat underwhelmed. This book, despite having good reviews (generally) is no exception. To be sure, there are many very good points to the book - it's extremely readable, covers both economic and military issues, gives good background, includes adequate maps, etc. However, it also contains the same problems that other Revolution books have.
I think these problems stem from a root cause, and that is that they are written by Americans. There is some weird blind spot that Americans have when writing about their own early history, that they seem don't have when writing about WWII, the Civil War, etc. I believe it stems from the same three underlying assumptions that permeate Revolution-era books:
1. Armed rebellion was inevitable.
2. Colonial victory and Independence was inevitable
3. The Colonies were Right and the British were Wrong.
The very first two assumptions are especially annoying to those of us in other former colonial countries that did not achieve independence through military action. Of just the former British colonies, a small sampling of non-revolutionary countries includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. Middlekauff falls squarely into this trap. If North American revolution was so inevitable, why didn't Nova Scotia join the rebellion? Why not Canada (modern Quebec and Ontario) - especially since the French Quebecoise had long enjoyed virtual independence from France and were not reconciled to more regulatory British rule. What about Florida, newly captured from Spain? What about the British Caribbean possesions, sugarcane growers having the same trade issues as tobacco growers? No, Middlekauff allows the 13 colonies to float virtually alone (to be sure, Benedict Arnold's invasion of Canada is reported, as is the British counter-invasion from Canada, but no discusion is made of why the French Quebecoise didn't aid the Americans).
The third assumption is similarly hard for modern-day descendants of American slaves to accept. As an institution, slavery survived in the United States long after it had disappeared from the British Empire (although African colonies suffered various versions of Apartheid). The revolution was fought for the benefit of wealthy merchants and landowners. I doubt that the average tenant or laborer saw any real economic or political benefit to independence in their lifetimes.
To be fair to Middlekauff, he does not make the second assumption. Much time and effort (I would argue a little too much!) in spent discussing deliberations in the British Parliament and to the responses of the States and of Congress. This part of the story is necessarily dry, but at least it explains legitimate grievances and how the resentment in the Colonies was allowed to build (but, as I mentioned, does not explain why such a resentment did not build up in Canada, Nova Scotia, the Caribbean colonies, etc.). But Middlekauff is at his best when describing the military activities that led to American victory. Not just the battles, but the manoeuvers, supply problems, the nature of armies in the late 18th century, etc. When described in such accurate and vivid detail, it's hard not to conclude that British military power was predestined to fail in the absence of real (British) political will to make significant concessions to the Colonies.
Or, maybe this book was unsatisfactory because the American Revolution is just not as inherently interesting as the Civil War or WWII. Whatever the case, this book is readable, certainly, but I didn't enjoy it a lot, especially when compared to McPherson's entry in this History of the United States series (Battle Cry of Freedom).
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