THE CREATION OF AMERICA

A detailed account of the less idealistic economic and political motivations that inspired the American Revolution.

Respected and controversial historian Jennings (Benjamin Franklin, Politician, 1996, etc.) again subjects the conventions surrounding the creation of the US to intense scrutiny. He argues that early historians gloss over the complexities of the Revolutionary War in favor of creating idealistic and romantic revolutionary figures: for instance, George Washington's shady manipulation of the courts to secure himself vast tracts of land disappears when traditional historians cast him as a righteous and virtuous republican founder. By exposing the hypocrisy inherent in many of these national myths, the author documents an American Revolution where personal economic and political aspirations fuel secessionist fervor. This transforms the celebrated rhetoric about freedom, liberty, and democracy into war propaganda for inspiring popular support. To advance this claim, Jennings scrutinizes colonial dealings in slave trade and Native American affairs and concludes that the revolution, while it freed the colonies from British rule, did not bring the virtuous democracy of our traditional histories into being—it merely created a new white ruling class. Therefore, the American Revolution, while worthy of study, is just one in a series of small steps toward a more perfect liberty. Many revisionist histories fail because they support an ideology at the expense of objectivity. Jennings's account, however, succeeds through a fair and honest reevaluation that not only sheds light on commonly neglected areas, but also provokes thought about uncomfortable aspects of our heritage.

An outstanding supplement to the many conventional histories of the American Revolution, Jennings's history offers both an objective account of the conflict and challenging insights about historical distortion.