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"A Few Bloody Noses": The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution Kindle Edition
According to King George III, Britain merely wanted to give America “a few bloody noses” and return to mutual cooperation. Yet the ensuing uprising led to the creation of the United States, the most powerful country in the modern world. In “A Few Bloody Noses”, Robert Harvey challenges conventional views of the American Revolution in almost every aspect—why it happened; who was winning and when; the characters of the principal protagonists; and the role of Native Americans and enslaved people.
Harvey takes a penetrating look at a war that was both vicious and confused, bloody and protracted, and marred on both sides by incompetence and bad faith. He underscores the effect of the Revolution on the settlers in America, and those at home in Britain—the country that the settlers had left behind, and to which many returned. The result is an extraordinarily fascinating and thoroughly readable account.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherABRAMS Press
- Publication dateMay 22, 2002
- Reading age18 years and up
- File size6880 KB
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Product details
- ASIN : B07QNV8FBW
- Publisher : ABRAMS Press; 1st edition (May 22, 2002)
- Publication date : May 22, 2002
- Language : English
- File size : 6880 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 499 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #620,545 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #160 in Historiography (Kindle Store)
- #206 in Revolutionary History
- #454 in US Revolution & Founding History (Kindle Store)
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Why foreigners believe they know everything that is wrong with the United States and find a ready market for their tomes here is beyond me. But they do. First of all, we are not ignorant of the "warts" on the Founding Fathers and do not believe Washington was a military genius. In fact, I know of no American historian who would say that. I vividly remember my first book on the Revolutionary War, Coffin's "The Boys of '76" that I read when I was eight years old. At the time I was thunderstruck at the many defeats suffered by the patriots, actually a majority of the battles, and have never been under illusions concerning the Revolutionary War since. Harvey's "illusions" are rather what he EXPECTS the Americans to believe if they were British and one were talking about British history. A note to Mr. Harvey -- please do not ascribe your shortcomings to us.
It is difficult to know where to begin with this review. One can almost pick out any page at random and argue over the content. George III was not some benign democratic monarch only wishing to inflict "a few bloody noses" on colonial troublemakers and bring the rest into line in the world's best government (see "Forgotten Patriots"). And yes, self-interest played a role in the patriot uprising, but the basic tenent of the idea of freedon is to be able to pursue one's self-interest without interference from government. Somehow the author doesn't understand that. The author brings forth Lee, Conway and Gates as "...all fell from stars to ignominious discredit...". Gee, Lee and Conway made only negative contributions in the war, and Gates was fortunate to have others (most notably Arnold) fight his only victory (Saratoga) for him. They were "stars"? And Knox was an uneven general (see Germantown) rather than the consistent hero the author makes him out to be.
The author's equating of the Revolutionary War with Vietnam betrays his total bankruptcy in understanding either conflict. Vietnam was not an American colony peopled by American colonists, Vietnam did not possess the approximately 2/3rds of its population unwilling to fight (in the Revolutionary War the idea that 1/3 were patriots, 1/3 loyalists and 1/3 neutral is roughly accurate and although many historians argue over the exact percentages, these were the major divisions), and after Tet, the Vietnam War was fought largely against North Vietnamese regulars, not domestic rebels. Nor did the Vietnamese and Americans come from the same racial stock, possess a common language, enjoy the same general Protestant religious base, or even share a common heritage in law. But no matter -- at least not for the author.
The author states that (based on his work) "Virtually every common assumption has to be substantially modified, if not rejected." Unbelievable hubris! The author writes one book on a subject and every common assumption on that war has to be modified or rejected? I wonder what he would say about an American author writing a book on the English Civil War in the 1600s if the American author made such a preposterous statement.
Maybe that means every one of his common assumptions, but let's start with the first and most important: that the United States won its independence from England. There are American historians who would argue that the French intervention was decisive. That probably is true, but it would not have happened had the patriots not defeated Burgoyne and captured his army. Or another that many American historians recognize -- that support in England itself, especially in London, was critical to maintaining the revolution on life support. But in fact, without the patriots' insensitivity to losses and ability to endure adversity, we'd still be in the Commonwealth today -- apparently where the author wants us. Up to one patriot in five was killed, died of wounds, died in captivity or soon after release, or from sickness during the war -- an almost unheard of level of fatalities in war; and surprise, apparently the author knows that. But hang in there, Harvey will tell us that it was England who won the Battle of Bunker Hill (Howe's comments to the contrary), that Lexington and Concord were well organized and efficient ambushes (although there were no British casualties at Lexington), and that the constitutional convention was the ultimate defeat to the patriot cause (now I'm really speechless.)
I would argue with almost every polemical point the author makes, with the added comment that he declined to give sources or refer the reader to where he obtained his inaccurate information. No doubt the author has good reasons for this upon which I do not wish to speculate. He does present a half-way reasonable bibliography, but I doubt that he read any of them. A Google search would do as well.
So read this book and then put it on the shelf with a product warning label that it is a prime example of the revisionist tripe being propounded about the US and its history by foreigners today -- or better yet, simply "Reading This is Hazardous to Your Health."
A very intersting read. Given his style, I would expect the author to describe Dunkirk in 1940 as "an advance in an alternative direction."
Throughout, Harvey inveighs against Americans' "heroic view of the Revolution" and "the remarkably enduring nature of the myths." But many of his versions of episodes in American history seem to have been culled from textbooks written fifty years ago. (Of the more than 160 works listed in the bibliography, only 14 were written after 1980.) Not once does Harvey identify the writers with whom he is arguing: his summary of the "prevailing myths" are always prefaced by "It is asserted," "It is claimed," "It is widely believed." For example, he claims that "one of the darkest and least researched corners of the American Revolution was the treatment of the loyalists," but he seems entirely oblivious of the scholarly studies by Christopher New or William Nelson or even of the standard popular account by Christopher Moore. Although Harvey seems to regard his revisionism as startlingly original, there is little that is new here. Instead, he seems to be debating the ghosts of such long-dead historians as Carl Becker and George Trevelyan.
At times, too, he is so intent on offering a contrary view that he traps himself in a corner. For example, he argues that historians "have traditionally ascribed" Burgoynes's disastrous expedition to Albany and surrender at Saratoga "to massive incompetence on the part of the British." Instead, Harvey contends, the British loss "can be more readily explained by the professional jealousy of two rival commanders." Let's set aside the hair-splitting question of whether military leaders who favor spite over victory can still be considered "competent." I defy anyone to read the subsequent fifty pages and still conclude that Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe were anything other than stupendously inept. Even Harvey seems to abandon his initial claim, finally admitting that defeat was "due to Burgoyne's suicidal impulse to advance and attack."
The bulk of Harvey's book focuses on military strategy and the specifics of various battles. He gives relatively short shrift to the ideological, social, economic, or political underpinnings of the conflict. When he does offer such analysis, though, his reliance on work published in the United States undercuts his thesis that Americans have an uncritical view of their own origins. His section on the frontier war is little more than an abstract of Colin Calloway's "The American Revolution in Indian Country," and the chapter on the hypocrisy of slave-owners fighting for liberty summarizes Benjamin Quarles's 1961 study, "The Negro in the American Revolution." (The author seems unaware of the dozens of studies published since Quayle's that recount in far more critical terms the treatment of blacks by American rebels.)
Harvey characterizes American complaints against British rule as whining hypocrisy, and he (correctly) points out that British colonial rule was so minimal as to be hardly "oppressive"--in large part because London was unable to rule the colonies effectively from across the Atlantic Ocean. He also claims that the rebels barely won the war and, if it weren't for the French, probably would have lost it. Yet, even if the British had prevailed in the 1780s, it is certain America would have won independence in some future decade--as did Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, India, Iraq, and every major colonial possession ever governed by the United Kingdom. Harvey never pauses to step back and look at the bigger picture: that while British rule may not have been so bad, it was untenable, unwanted, unnecessary, and ultimately doomed to failure.
Overall, then, Harvey's stirring prose and strident arguments can't overcome the fact that his book is both fifty years behind the time and ill-considered in its implicit defense of colonialism.
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Thankfully,Robert Harvey takes a shotgun to this viewpoint and brings a welcome balance to the debate.
As Harvey points out, London was to far away to rule with an iron fist. For all the talk of British repression, we learn that the colonies were the least taxed region of the Empire. In every instance, British actions to govern the colonies (including the not unreasonable stance of Americans paying for their own defence) was met with American resistance. And yet, before the revolution, American silence to the pressing questions of defence, taxation and governance, spoke volumes.
Harvey shows us that a British Parliament with a high number of American supporters, could have pushed a bill for home rule, if one had been forthcoming from the colonies. When you consider the intelluctual prowess that the founding fathers had, it is amazing that the colonies didn't present a unified front and draft a proposal up. Instead, both London and the colonies were content to muddle along with fatal consequnces.
Nor were Americans appreciative to limits placed on them by the proclamation of 1763,a British attempt to preserve the Indian nations was met with outright hostility by land greedy colonists, and the colonial elites who profited hugely from it.
Time and again, we hear Jefferson arguing for liberty and freedom, and yet, the British Army freed thousands of slaves and were keen to preserve the Indian nations as future trading partners. The Americans in contrast, practiced a scorched earth policy regarding the native tribes, and unlike the British, were reluctant to allow African Americans to fight for them.
On the military side, we see the genius of Washington snatching victory from the jaws of defeat (despite his defeats at the hands of Howe) and the disaster that was the Saratoga campaign that drove a stake into Britian's military effort.
Harvey argues that Britian didn't fuly press the war as much as it could have. Robert Clive, arguably Britian's most able general, refused to fight the colonists. Nor was the loss of the colonies a great deal - the west indies being much more lucrative.
Harvey argues that the revolution was Britian's 'Vietnam.' Much like the Americans two centuries later, Britian won most of the battles, but the lack of an end game, the rebels habit of ruling the vast hinterlands, made victory less likely for Britian. Therefore, one could argue it was British reluctance to fight (they still controlled most of the port towns at the war's end) rather than American victories, that won the war.
To be fair, the book does contain inaccuracies, but in my view, it is a welcome addition to the canon of work concerning the revolution
This exposé has been predictably dismissed as `revisionist history' by those wanting to perpetuate the fantasy of the Revolution being the utmost expression of liberty and nobility.
But those who want a step by step guide through the events that enabled a small minority of smugglers, radicals, misfits and lawless riff-raff to systematically provoke the necessary chaos, that eventually overwhelmed the American establishment and how the British did too little too late to prevent it, this is a good place to start.
So if you are someone that can withstand being confronted with the real facts of the Revolution, then this book is a sound investment