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Ray Raphael
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A People's History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence Reprint Edition, Kindle Edition

by Ray Raphael (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 148 ratings
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“The best single-volume history of the Revolution I have read.” —Howard Zinn
 
Upon its initial publication, Ray Raphael’s magisterial A People’s History of the American Revolution was hailed by NPR’s Fresh Air as “relentlessly aggressive and unsentimental.” With impeccable skill, Raphael presented a wide array of fascinating scholarship within a single volume, employing a bottom-up approach that has served as a revelation.
 
A People’s History of the American Revolution draws upon diaries, personal letters, and other Revolutionary-era treasures, weaving a thrilling “you are there” narrative—“a tapestry that uses individual experiences to illustrate the larger stories”. Raphael shifts the focus away from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to the slaves they owned, the Indians they displaced, and the men and boys who did the fighting (Los Angeles Times Book Review).
 
This “remarkable perspective on a familiar part of American history” helps us appreciate more fully the incredible diversity of the American Revolution (Kirkus Reviews).
 
“Through letters, diaries, and other accounts, Raphael shows these individuals—white women and men of the farming and laboring classes, free and enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, loyalists, and religious pacifists—acting for or against the Revolution and enduring a war that compounded the difficulties of everyday life.” —Library Journal 
 
“A tour de force . . . Ray Raphael has probably altered the way in which future historians will see events.” —The Sunday Times
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-1620971833
  2. Edition
    Reprint
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    The New Press
  5. Publication date
    May 24, 2011
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    3529 KB
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

California-based writer Raphael (An Everyday History of Somewhere; etc.) offers an accessible study of the American Revolution, as part of a series edited by Howard Zinn, and in the tradition of his A People's History of the United States. Most books on the Revolution focus on generals and kings, although scholars have, in the last two decades, turned some of their attention to the lives of ordinary people. Raphael transforms the best insights of that scholarship into a lively, readable narrative. Yes, kings and generals were important, but it was the people at large who brought about American independence. Even before the war started, ordinary people were involved in protesting British abuses, refusing to consume tea and other British luxury items. Women supported the Revolution by spinning their own cloth (rather than buying it from Britain) and working the farms their husbands left behind when the militia called them to the front. Young men eager to "git" their rights uncomplainingly subsisted on moldy bread while they camped out in the snow, waiting to encounter Redcoats. White colonists weren't the only Americans affected by the war. Abenaki Indians, for example, were paid to fight alongside the rebels. Raphael also shows how many slaves, infected with the freedom-fighting spirit, bid unsuccessfully for their own independence via insurrections, escape and reasoning. Both English and American armies wanted the slaves' loyalties, and the slaves, in turn, believed that if they served the winning side, they would gain freedom. Moving from broad overviews to stories of small groups or individuals, Raphael's study is impressive in both its sweep and its attention to the particular. The book will delight, educate and entertain all Revolution buffs. (Apr.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Raphael (Men from the Boys: Rites of Passage in Male America) narrates the American Revolution from the eyes of the common people who, without wealth, authority, or privilege defined and shaped the Revolution. He argues that the Revolution was largely the product not of the patrician classes of Virginia or New England but of the common people. Through letters, diaries, and other accounts, Raphael shows these individualsDwhite women and men of the farming and laboring classes, free and enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, loyalists, and religious pacifistsDacting for or against the Revolution and enduring a war that compounded the difficulties of everyday life and that resulted in a higher percentage of American civilian and military deaths than any of America's other wars except the Civil War. Written for the lay reader, this work synthesizes recent historical scholarship on the Revolution and maintains the high standards of editor Howard Zinn's "People's History" series. Strongly recommended for public and academic libraries.DCharles L. Lumpkins, Pennsylvania State Univ., State College
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01EEQ9C0O
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press; Reprint edition (May 24, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 24, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3529 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 ‏ : ‎ 527 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 148 ratings

About the author

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Ray Raphael

Ray Raphael

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Ray Raphael is a Senior Research Fellow at Humboldt State University, California. His seventeen books include Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past, A People's History of the American Revolution, Mr. President: How and Why the Founders Created a Chief Executive, and most recently Constitutional Myths: What We Get Wrong and How to Get It Right.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
148 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Daryl Anderson
5.0 out of 5 stars History you can believe - Imagine that !
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2001
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What great news to hear that Howard Zinn and the New Press are creating a "People's History" series!
Even better news is the outstanding job Ray Raphael has done of this first effort in that series. He has taken on the overall approach of the 'original', Zinn's "People's History of the United States" and applied it to the "creation myths" of our country in a way that creates real history which is captivating even as it strips the gloss from the schoolboy history handed on for generations.
The really nice thing is that Raphael has accomplished this with a voice that is unique to himself and to this book. No mere expansion of a chapter from the earlier Zinn book, this. Even having read Zinn's book, I found that this one retained the same ability to amaze me with fundamental reexamination of core beliefs.
At its center this book is, more than anything else, a study of how revolution happens. As such it is important reading for anyone who considers how fundamental change might happen in this country, if ever, again. The real myth of our history is not so much the focus on individual heroics or great battles as the implicit claim that our revolution fell into place so neatly, so quickly. Somewhere between chapters 3 and 5 in our history books the Brits passed some taxes, the Colonists rose up in righteous indignation, the battle was at hand - then won.
Raphael demonstrates at length, through original sources created by regular folks, that the whole business was much longer work than that. People don't just rise up overnight, casting off habits of mind and cultural expectations of what can and cannot be done. People don't just sit down and pen some pamphlets or high-sounding declarations and raise armies.
This book shows how, over decades, a broad sweep of reaction against oppressive institutions by everyday people built a solid groundwork which meant that the final "revolution" was neither unexpected nor un-practiced. He describes how many earlier uprisings, revolts, and proto-revolutions radicalized the populace and eroded assumptions about rights of elites. He describes how the vast majority of disenfranchised poor played a fundamental role in shifting those assumptions.
Throughout he reminds us of what a complicated business it was. From the broad in scope - the impossibility of raising a standing army from reluctant and other-committed farmers and family men, (and the consequential injection of a military draft and a messy cash-buyout business) to the narrow - why the "tea party" energized so many common folk to whom tea was the ultimate class icon.
Thoughtful people have learned to be skeptical of delivered history. But it really helps to have something real to counterbalance mere skepticism. This history is real, this is eye-opening stuff, this is the rest of the story.
41 people found this helpful
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Jason Richardson
5.0 out of 5 stars shipped fast
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2024
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Book arrived as expected
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gloine36
4.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful view of the American Revolution from the viewpoint of the people that participated in it!
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2015
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One of the wonderful things to emerge out of Howard Zinn’s focus on the struggles of the common people in history was the bottom up approach to studying history. Zinn was not responsible for this view alone, but his seminal work A People’s History of the United States played a very important role in popularizing the history of ordinary people in extraordinary times. Ray Raphael continued that tradition with this volume concerning the American Revolution. Part of Zinn’s People’s History series, American Revolution explores the period through the actions of common people. The result is a very different view of the Revolution.

Raphael explores the history of ordinary Americans in the time of the American Revolution in seven chapters. From the very beginning of the Revolution in the time of the Stamp Act through the Spirit of ’75, women, loyalists, Native Americans, and African-Americans, he explores how the actions of these common people affected the course of the era. The result is a fascinating exploration of history that often is overlooked or downplayed by history books. Gone are the Great Men of History and in their place are men and women who had to make decisions for their own interests and needs.

This is a great book in the sense that it can complement political histories or grand narratives by providing a view to the role of people in the Revolution. That is the best way I think the bottom up approach to history can work. As a college professor, one of the classes I teach is the survey course which covers a huge amount of time in a relatively short period of time. We often have no recourse but to go with the larger view of history as a result. I have found that providing each student with a segment from this book and others like it gives them a glimpse into the ways common people reacted to the events around them. In this way they can begin to understand that history is really nothing more than the actions of millions of people over time.

Some of those people are well known to us while many others are not, but all of their actions are what makes history, not just that of a few. I particularly like how Raphael explores the history of the Stamp Act riots that took place in Boston of 1786. He explains the role of Ebenezer MacIntosh in orchestrating those riots. Yet, most Americans have never heard of this man and what he did. Without Ebenezer’s actions, these riots might not have taken place or been directed against the Stamp Act. Without them, it becomes difficult to say what might have happened. Suddenly, the role of a common becomes important to how things occurred in history.

There are many more tales like this in the book. That is what really stands out. It is a collection of stories and that makes for great history. This was not a good/evil or black/white event. There were many shades of grey before, during, and after the period. People had widely varying reactions to the event itself and acted accordingly. Don’t believe me? Read for yourself and you can begin to understand why people did what they did. Even better, learn how some of these actions would have ramifications for events that transpired long after these people passed away.

The book is easy to read too. Raphael made good use of sources, but instead of writing like a closeted academic he focused on telling a story. The result is a good, fact filled, and entertaining view of history that often eludes many historians’ attempts. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and found many uses for it in my history classes.
19 people found this helpful
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William
5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Tells The Ordinary People's Viewpoints Of The American Revolution.
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2020
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This book tells the ordinary people's viewpoints of the American Revolution. Its approach is similar to Howard Zinn's style of writing about American history. Some of the interesting facts that this book mentions are as follows: The every day views of regular ordinary people can sometimes be different than the views of the leaders in power. Some 80,000 people, about one in 30 people back then, belonged to pacifistic communities that opposed the Revolutionary War on religious grounds. Since the late 1600's in Boston and nearby, the richest 5% of the population had increased their share of the taxable assets from 30% to 49%. Loyalists to the British Crown came in all shapes and forms, and they were not all rich. In New York ironically, some of those who opposed the Revolution were poor tenant farmers. Families were occasionally divided by differing allegiances. Benjamin Franklin repudiated his son William for being a loyalist. The author of the book said that if we focus on the process of the Revolutionary War rather than its outcome, we find that almost everybody had to give up, at least for a time, the very freedom they hoped to achieve. For some people, there was no freedom at all. There was a culture change in the Iroquois. The men, no longer able to make a living by hunting, had little choice but to farm. The League of Six Nations was torn apart by the American Revolution.
7 people found this helpful
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RussellM
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2023
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Book was as described and shipping was fast. Thanks for a pain free transaction.
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Diane McCray
3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2013
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This book gave an interesting view of what the war was like for the ordinary people. It also pointed out to me that from the beginning the US government has not treated veterans well and from the beginning it has given special privileges to the rich while not caring about the average people.
5 people found this helpful
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Longhunter
5.0 out of 5 stars Eindrücke, die nicht eindringlicher sein können.
Reviewed in Germany on December 27, 2004
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Seit kurzer Zeit beschäftige ich mich mit dem amerikanischen Unabhängigkeitskrieg und sammle mir gute Literatur.
Dieses Buch von Ray Raphael zeigt eine Seite dieses Konfliktes, welche sehr schwierig zu erfassen ist, da in der Zeit von 1775 bis 1783 die Meinungen der einfachen Menschen nicht so gut dokumentiert wurden wie heute.
Raphael hat einige der Briefe und Beschreibungen (von denen es bestimmt nur wenige gibt) auf interessante Art und Weise zusammengetragen. Das Buch las sich sehr schnell und öffnet ein Bild über diesen Krieg, das man in Artikeln und Büchern über die Schlachten nie zu lesen bekommt.
Richtig gut und deswegen 5 Sterne.
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