A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American RepublicOxford University Press, 2003 M06 12 - 576 páginas It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations. In A Leap in the Dark, John Ferling offers a magisterial new history that surges from the first rumblings of colonial protest to the volcanic election of 1800. Ferling's swift-moving narrative teems with fascinating details. We see Benjamin Franklin trying to decide if his loyalty was to Great Britain or to America, and we meet George Washington when he was a shrewd planter-businessman who discovered personal economic advantages to American independence. We encounter those who supported the war against Great Britain in 1776, but opposed independence because it was a "leap in the dark." Following the war, we hear talk in the North of secession from the United States. The author offers a gripping account of the most dramatic events of our history, showing just how closely fought were the struggle for independence, the adoption of the Constitution, and the later battle between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Yet, without slowing the flow of events, he has also produced a landmark study of leadership and ideas. Here is all the erratic brilliance of Hamilton and Jefferson battling to shape the new nation, and here too is the passion and political shrewdness of revolutionaries, such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, and their Loyalist counterparts, Joseph Galloway and Thomas Hutchinson. Here as well are activists who are not so well known today, men like Abraham Yates, who battled for democratic change, and Theodore Sedgwick, who fought to preserve the political and social system of the colonial past. Ferling shows that throughout this period the epic political battles often resembled today's politics and the politicians--the founders--played a political hardball attendant with enmities, selfish motivations, and bitterness. The political stakes, this book demonstrates, were extraordinary: first to secure independence, then to determine the meaning of the American Revolution. John Ferling has shown himself to be an insightful historian of our Revolution, and an unusually skillful writer. A Leap in the Dark is his masterpiece, work that provokes, enlightens, and entertains in full measure. |
Dentro del libro
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Página xii
... independence have roots in the long colonial past? How did the factional, and later party, battles that followed the War of Independence fit within this long transitional era? Did the parties in the 1790s, the Federalists and ...
... independence have roots in the long colonial past? How did the factional, and later party, battles that followed the War of Independence fit within this long transitional era? Did the parties in the 1790s, the Federalists and ...
Página xiii
... independence, the primal question that confronted political activists and an engaged public was just how revolutionary the break with the Anglo-American past would be. In most instances, the answer lay at the very heart of one's ...
... independence, the primal question that confronted political activists and an engaged public was just how revolutionary the break with the Anglo-American past would be. In most instances, the answer lay at the very heart of one's ...
Página 26
... Independence, which doubtless colored his perspective and caused some exaggeration, he was correct that in some ways life in the provinces was profoundly dissimilar to that in the imperial metropolis. America had its elite, but there ...
... Independence, which doubtless colored his perspective and caused some exaggeration, he was correct that in some ways life in the provinces was profoundly dissimilar to that in the imperial metropolis. America had its elite, but there ...
Página 40
... Independence” was born in the minds of the colonists during the Stamp Act crisis.34 Nonetheless, Americans did not advocate independence in 1765, and indeed they were not yet revolutionaries. Many were not yet even radicals, but as ...
... Independence” was born in the minds of the colonists during the Stamp Act crisis.34 Nonetheless, Americans did not advocate independence in 1765, and indeed they were not yet revolutionaries. Many were not yet even radicals, but as ...
Página 64
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Contenido
1 | |
23 | |
3 17661770 To Crush the Spirit of the Colonies | 53 |
4 17701774 The Cause of Boston Now Is the Cause of America | 87 |
5 17751776 To Die Freemen Rather Than to Live Slaves | 123 |
6 17761777 A Leap Into the Dark | 167 |
7 17781782 This Wilderness of Darkness Dangers | 209 |
8 17831787 The Present Paroxysm of Our Affairs | 247 |
10 17901793 Prosperous at Home Respectable Abroad | 315 |
11 17931796 A Colossus to the Antirepublican Party | 355 |
12 17971799 A Game Where Principles Are the Stake | 405 |
13 17991801 The Gigg Is Up | 451 |
14 1801 An Age of Revolution and Reformation | 477 |
Abbreviations | 489 |
Notes | 493 |
Index | 539 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic John Ferling Vista previa limitada - 2003 |
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic John Ferling Vista previa limitada - 2003 |
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic John Ferling Sin vista previa disponible - 2003 |
Términos y frases comunes
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