Good Year for Revolution free essay sample

The year before, Phillips argues, laid the groundwork for all that followed. The title, 1775: A Good Year for Revolution, may sound like a more modest undertaking, though Its size well over 500 pages indicates otherwise. In some sense, the argument Is simple: 1775, not 1776, was the real hinge of American history, the moment when independence transformed from a possibility to a reality. Indeed, it was only the tremendous sense of momentum that came out of 1775, especially in terms of the string of victories Phillips dubs the Battle of Boston, that allowed thePatriot cause to absorb the many military blows that followed the Declaration, years in which the rage military (Phillips) of 75 largely dissipated, especially in the South. The spirit of 76, by contrast, was a bicentennial marketing device. But the scope of the book Is In fact much wider. Phillips offers a sweeping interpretation of the coming of the Revolution that encompasses familiar topics like politics and economics as well as less familiar ones like the logistics of international gunpowder supply and naval tactics. He also foregrounds the interplay between culture and geography, paying facial attention to the dynamics of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia and South Carolina, whose role he sees as pivotal (Connecticut and South Carolina too often overlooked). Theres also a fine chapter on the geopolitics of the Revolution, notably the role of Spain, which temporarily arrested its decline enough to make a decisive contribution to the cause and its own imperial prospects. Every review of this book that I have read has some points that I agree and disagree with.All of the reviews are good in nature and agree the book is historically accurate. They also all agree that Phillips definitely proves his point about the year 1775. But, each picks apart the book in places and make a decisions based on the way the author interprets those parts. One can Interpret 1775 by Phillips In many deferent ways. For example with the review by Gordon wood, he places It In a light of an Ideological revolution. Woods review stated that some of the colonist believed there were no traditional signs of a revolution, such as tyranny, forceful governance, and absolute religious control. Peter Oliver, who wrote the most vitriolic Tory history of the revolution, said that It as the most wanton and unnatural rebellion that ever existed (Wood 2). Wood believed that Phillips handling of the debates between Britain and the Colonist was weak. Wood stated that Phillips treated them as factors to be lumped alongside I OFF the book is a significant achievement (Wood 8) and that Phillips had compiled a convincing case (Wood 8). Another interpretation is the review by James C. Bennett. He believes that the book is a case study for anyone seeking to understand the rapidly approaching end of the failing institutions of our own era: big bureaucratic overspent, labor unions, and crony corporations. (Bennett 1). Bennett reiterates the problems of taxation and representation the colonist had with Britain and also with the British trying to take over the mercantile industry and then compares them to some of the issues America is facing now.In one instance he stated, the Britons paid far more than Americans per capita in taxation, and that before long, independent Americans were paying higher taxes to their own federal government than they ever had paid to the Crown (Bennett 2). The last review I read was by Joseph J. Ellis. Ellis interprets the book in a way that shows it as less off revolution to become America and more of a separation from England so that the colonies could control themselves. This was due to the different beliefs each side held on how each person should live their life according to their religious and political beliefs.Ellis claims the book as a feisty, fearless, edgy book, blissfully bereft of academic Jargon, propelled by the energy of an author with the bit in his teeth (Ellis 2). Near the heart of Phillips analysis of 1775 is a subject that typically gets short shrift in modern stereography of the revolution these days: religion. He picks through the often- complicated sectarian politics of eighteenth century North America, in which ethnicity and geography were also tangled. So it is, for example, that he explains Virginia Anglicans tended to be Whig, while Massachusetts Anglicans tended to be Tories.He affirms, as many previous observers have, that the Congregationalist heirs o f the Puritans dominated New England politics, the cockpit of Patriot fervor. But he locates strands of revolutionary ardor in New Jersey Presbyterian and Pennsylvania Lutheran as well and considers them important. As Phillips notes, such arguments, once the staple of Victorian histories like those of Thomas Abnegating Macaulay and John Lothrop Motley, have long fallen out of favor. Did these men have a better sense of the religiosity of eighteenth century than more recent chroniclers? he asks. Probably.Were they correct in painting a dour, predestination-minded culture as a progressive political force? Probably Modern cultural biases cannot wholly rewrite a prior American reality: that the Calvinist denominations central to those old battles bulked larger in the thirteen colonies of the sass than any major European nation. Phillips is particularly skeptical that secular ideology was as important as its recent champions have asserted. He doesnt deny its prevalence in Revolutionary discourse, but he sees it as one element in a more complex fabric, and one tha t was probably secondary to trading interests. As he distills his view in his chapter on the subject on the birth of American politics: economic motivations, constitutional rhetoric. The core point in any case is that the crucible of the American Revolution was the period between the fall of 1774 and the end of 1775. It was in these months that the rebels did not declare independence, but actually implemented it: they seized control of governments, formulated economic strategy, and actually fought a series of battles that stretched from Canada to the Carolinas.Phillips believes the Declaration of Independence was literally an afterthought. As not always felicitous. Its not clear, for example, why we need two separate chapters, in two separate sections, on the Canadian campaign. Or two separate chapters Britains first efforts to contain the Revolution of the South. Figures like the colorful Lord Denture certainly have a place in this story, but probably not as frequently as he pops up. Overall, the book is a highly readable. Phillips is very persuasive in making the case for 1775 to be the year of Americas independence.