A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American RepublicOxford University Press, 12. jun. 2003 - 576 strani 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. |
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Zadetki 1–5 od 83
Stran xiii
... believed the effort to attain independence might fail due to political shortcomings. Later, in 1786, after the war had been won, many feared that seemingly insoluble political and economic problems doomed the Union. Still later, in the ...
... believed the effort to attain independence might fail due to political shortcomings. Later, in 1786, after the war had been won, many feared that seemingly insoluble political and economic problems doomed the Union. Still later, in the ...
Stran 10
... believed that the inhabitants of America would be more receptive to a plan that was hatched on their side of the Atlantic. He also knew that it would be easier to correct any flaws in the scheme if it were a homegrown invention. About ...
... believed that the inhabitants of America would be more receptive to a plan that was hatched on their side of the Atlantic. He also knew that it would be easier to correct any flaws in the scheme if it were a homegrown invention. About ...
Stran 17
... believed, as did Franklin, that the “disunited state” of the colonies encouraged French aggression.23 Experience also taught these delegates that little hope existed of the provinces acting in concert to overcome the common threat ...
... believed, as did Franklin, that the “disunited state” of the colonies encouraged French aggression.23 Experience also taught these delegates that little hope existed of the provinces acting in concert to overcome the common threat ...
Stran 32
... believed that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies.18 Word reached America in April that the Stamp Act had passed Parliament, but it was another thirty days, and sometimes sixty or more, before some colonies received the text of ...
... believed that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies.18 Word reached America in April that the Stamp Act had passed Parliament, but it was another thirty days, and sometimes sixty or more, before some colonies received the text of ...
Stran 40
... believed that he and many others had been transformed by the events of that frantic year. The people in all social classes, he ruminated, had become “more attentive to their liberties, more inquisitive about them, and more determined to ...
... believed that he and many others had been transformed by the events of that frantic year. The people in all social classes, he ruminated, had become “more attentive to their liberties, more inquisitive about them, and more determined to ...
Vsebina
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 |
Druge izdaje - Prikaži vse
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic John Ferling Predogled ni na voljo - 2003 |
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic John E. Ferling Predogled ni na voljo - 2003 |
Pogosti izrazi in povedi
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