Theodore Draper is the author of many books, including Castroism, The Roots of American Communism and A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs. A Struggle for Power: The American Revolution will appear later this year.
The American Revolution is not what it used to be. In the 19th century, it was a revered and present memory. Until the Second World War, it was still a proud and familiar subject, taught piously in every American school. Gradually, the distance in time and the change of population have eroded it in the national ethos. The Civil War has captured the country’s main historical attention, possibly because it evokes one of the most anguished social problems in the United States today. The Revolution does not have the same link with the present; the British, after all, are now America’s friends and allies, not its hated oppressors.
The American Revolution is the subject of a rich and complex historical literature. In the 19th century, George Bancroft, the father of American historical writing, portrayed it as the...
Fine phrases about the freedom of the individual and the inviolability of the home were exchanged between the Minister of State and the Prefect, to whom M. de Sérisy pointed out that the...
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