Colleagues,
I am a Civil War era historian who will be teaching a course on the era of the American Revolution for the first time this coming spring semester. I intend this to be a reading and discussion course. Although I am quite familiar with the historiography of the Revolution from the early-1980s backward, there are gaping holes in my knowledge since then.
Could someone suggest a list of course books, preferably short ones, suitable to an upper-level undergraduate discussion class. I would be most appreciative.
Thanks in advance,
Lex Renda
UW-Milwaukee
Dear Lex Renda -- I'm an early Americanist (who's about to teach the Civil War for the first time -- your opposite number). Here's a few experiences I've had in teaching the AmRev.
I've used Joseph Plumb Martin's first-hand account of the life of a private in the Continental Army, with mixed results. Mixed in that I loved it, but students were lukewarm. It is available and cheap through Brandywine Press, under the title Ordinary Courage. Martin wrote in the 1820s, and tried to demystify the Revolution. He has a lot to say about being hungry, and about officers leading a cushy life, and so on. I believe my students wanted more romance.
Sylvia Frey's *Water From the Rock* is not especially short, but it is especially good. She will give your people a whole new outlook on what the AR meant for black people and for slaveholders. Strongly recommended.
If your students are up for political theory, you should definitely think about Edmund Morgan's *Inventing the People*. He manages to give constitutional history some narrative motion, and that's not easy.
Finally, on the vexed subject of American identity and its origins, Jack Greene has said a lot of intelligent things. His *Pursuits of Happiness* can be grasped pretty readily by students. Granted, its scope makes it in some ways more suitable for a colonial course, but he keeps his eye on the identity question. His *peripheries and center* is worth a look as well.
Gotta go now, hope this helps.
Steve Whitman, Mt. St. Mary's College.
You might start by looking at Richard Brown, ed. _Major Problems in
the Era of the American Revolution_ (DC Heath 1992) which is a
combination primary source/selective articles. I've used the
Kupperman, ed. Major Problems in American Colonial History, and the
series seems to provide enough material for discussion and is fairly
accessible to undergraduates. One of the most recent works that
has gotten a lot of attention, acclaim, as well as criticism is
Gordon Wood, the Radicalism of the American Revolution (Vintage,
1991). I'm not sure how well it might work for undergraduates,
but it generated a lively discussion in my graduate seminar last
fall. Some more recent monographs that deal with the effects of
Revolution on non-white inhabitants of the American colonies are:
Colin G. Calloway, _the American Revolution in Indian Country:
Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities,_ (Cambridge,
1995); Sylvia Frey, _Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a
Revolutionary Age_ (Princeton, 1991);
Madison House puts out a couple of books that may be better for
undergraduates. Gary Nash, Race and Revolution (1990) that
contains three published lectures and related primary
documents dealing with Revolution, Slavery and Abolitionism. A
related volume from Madison is John Kaminski, ed. _A Necessary Evil?
Slavery and the Debate Over the Constitution._
Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel, _The Way of Duty: A Woman and Her
Family in Revolutionary America_ also works well with undergraduates.
Best of luck.
Jane T. Merritt
Assistant Professor
Old Dominion University
Don Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition, 1985, short and sweet
David Hackett Fischer, Paul Revere's Ride, 1994, excellent with document section
James L. Stokesbury, Short History of the American Revolution, 1991
You may want to look at the US Army's Center of Military History Bibliographies of the War of American Independence, located on the web at:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/reference/revbib/revwar.htm
Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. grizzard@virginia.edu
Assistant Editor
Papers of George Washington
University of Virginia
Visit the Papers of George Washington on the World-Wide Web at:
http://www.virginia.edu/~gwpapers
I would suggest two rather unconventional books:
First, for not much more than the cost of an ordinary paperbound monograph these days, you can have students buy and use (in various ways) the paperbound edition of the BLACKWELL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION edited by Jack Greene and J. R. Pole (about $27). It's full of narrative and analytical essays on nearly all aspects of the Revolution, has brief biographies of important figures, and is overall an excellent reference work and teaching tool.
Second, for even less money, you could assign one or both volumes of Charles Hyneman and Donald Lutz, eds., AMERICAN POLITICAL WRITING DURING THE FOUNDING ERA 1760-1805 ($16 for BOTH volumes!). The pamphlets, sermons, and essays included in these volumes would provide your students with the possibility of "full immersion" in the era's political thought (though there are gaps, naturally), if you think that's the route you'd like to go. The documents in these volumes are all introduced by brief editorial comments. I've had some success asking students to write term papers based on one or more documents. (I realize this is not exactly what you asked for: these are not short books, nor do the documents reflect the scholarship of the 1980s-90s; I just thought they were worth mentioning anyway.)
Good luck!
Doug Deal
History/SUNY-Oswego
Lex,
I use Gordon Wood's Radicalism of the American Revolution '92(which I'm sure many others do) in conjunction with _Major Problems in the Era of the American Revolution_--a series of which I'm sure you are familiar that contains fourteen topically arranged chapters of essay selections from major journals or book excerpts.
It has worked well for me in a couple of ways--1)Wood's book--which they read from all semester--of course carries through the theme of democratization through a combination of social, cultural, and ideological history. 2)The shorter essays--near fifty in all--then provide not only counterpoint at times, but also different ways of doing history--new military, gender, race..., which of course leads to a rather broad view of the Revolution (at least from an undergraduate perspective). 3)Major Problems also contains primary documents for each chapter that further broaden the course and sometimes provide fodder for questioning the readings. And 4)I've found that assigning undergrads essays instead of half a dozen books leads to more fruitful class discussions. Essays, of course, get to the point quickly and hammer a thesis hard. In class, the students quickly identify the arguemts and then have plenty of time to bat them around. I have them all choose and read two or three books from a bibliography and then write analytical essays that combine their books with the essays discussed in class.
Good Luck,
Paul Douglas Newman
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
>Colleagues,
>
>I am a Civil War era historian who will be teaching a course on
the
>era of the American Revolution for the first time this coming
spring
>semester. I intend this to be a reading and discussion course.
Although
>I am quite familiar with the historiography of the Revolution from
the
>early-1980s backward, there are gaping holes in my knowledge since
then.
>
>Could someone suggest a list of course books, preferably short
ones,
>suitable to an upper-level undergraduate discussion class. I would be
most
>appreciative.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Lex Renda
>UW-Milwaukee
Dear Lex: As I have read the responses to your query I realize that by now you probably have more information than you want. Nevertheless, let me second some of the suggestions. My students have liked the Heath series Major Problems -- it is up to date and helps them organize the various topics we cover. They love The Minutemen and Their World -- it is short, deals with "real" people and gives them a good sense of social and economic problems as they related to commitment to the war. Other books the students have liked: Bailyn, Ideological Origins; Kammen, Origins of the American Constitution (documents, but the letters are especially revealing for students unaccustomed to primary sources); Greene, Pursuits of Happiness; Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis; Labaree, The Boston Tea Party; Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause (long, but a great narrative); Bushman, From Puritan To Yankee (a good way of bringing in the Great Awakening).