Approaches to Examining The American Resolution

When comparing The American Revolution by Edward Countryman to its predecessor, Bernard Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, one comes dangerously close to falling into the cliched trap of sizing up apples to oranges: both may appear similar from the perspective of generalization, but the substantive differences are something else again. It is not so much a matter of approach - though Bailyn relies heavily upon examination of original source materials to make his points, Countryman does not neglect them - rather, the individual points of attack on their shared subject shifts each historian further and further apart in their interpretative approaches. Finally, this dichotomy of approach leads to near-opposite conclusions.

But what is their "shared subject" - for maybe here is where Bailyn and Countryman diverge, making their subsequent interpretative disagreement less profound than it appears? Broadly speaking, both men declare their intent to examine "the American Revolution," specifically, the "change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people" as opposed to an emphasis on the war itself. In so approaching t

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Category: History - A