Analysis Of Joseph J. Ellis 's ' The Long Run '

Gordon Wood’s Radicalism of the American Revolution is a book that extensively covers the origin and ideas preceding the American Revolution. Wood’s account of the Revolution goes beyond the history and timeline of the war and offers a new encompassing look inside the social ideology and economic forces of the war. Wood explains in his book that America went through a two-stage progression to break away from the Monarchical rule of the English. He believes the pioneering revolutionaries were rooted in the belief of an American Republic. However, it was the radical acceptance of democracy that was the final step toward independence. The transformation between becoming a Republic, to ultimately becoming a democracy, is where Wood’s

I will be evaluating two research papers using peter Ellis’s framework (2013). Using critical appraisal framework to evaluate a research paper offers general and specific questions to ask. The framework aids people to recognise if the study was designed and carried out properly and to identify if it is beneficial to other people or has any flaws to it (Steen and Roberts, 2011). The first paper I will be discussing is a quantative paper and the second is a qualitative paper.

After the colonies gained independence, the founding fathers soon found that becoming a new independent nation was going to be a difficult task. The biggest task was deciding on the division of power in the government. This issue divided the people into two groups, the federalists and the Jeffersonian republicans. Alexander Hamilton led the federalists and Thomas Jefferson led the republicans. These two important men in history would later show how the challenges of becoming a new nation. In this essay I will be analyzing the ideas of Linda K. Kerber’s “The Fears of the Federalists,” to Drew R. McCoy’s “The Fears of the Jeffersonian Republicans.” Furthermore, comparisons will be made about both essays to gain a better understanding of the struggles of government in early America.

The lack of “imperial chains” caused the Revolution’s effects, compared to drastic well-known revolutions, to be small (Wood 127). But the quick colonization of America over just a few centuries driven by the motivation of religious freedom and escape from persecution translated to the radical idea of equality and independence in men and later the abolishment of slavery and the support of women’s rights (132, 129). This battle caused America to unify against a common enemy and transformed the landscape of individual colonies to an interconnected continent with radically different social relationships and mindset

Anglicization of the Britain’s American colonies was a big event for the course of not only American or British history, but world history. The colonists adopting many British ways and becoming very patriotic towards the “mother country” had a large effect on the events that unfolded in the late 18th century. While it is true that the American colonists were incredibly British during the beginning to the mid-18th century, the colonies had been around long enough to develop their own culture and way of doing things. The series of events and acts that were imposed on the colonists post French and Indian War got the ball rolling on what came to be known as the American Revolution. The colonists were so fed up with the way in which the British were tightening their hold on the colonies to the point where they were driven to rebellion. The combination of British and underlying American ideals in the pre-revolution era were a necessarily pre-requisite and important component of what would become the American Revolution.

While all of the above social, cultural and economic circumstances were playing out and laying the groundwork for the American Revolution, several important political developments came to fruition in the concluding half of the 18th century that sealed the certainty of the American Revolution and made it inevitable. These developments, namely, the relative strengths of the local and colonial governments at the time, the betrayal of the colonies by the British Crown after King George’s War, and the end of Salutary Neglect, proved to present insurmountable odds to the colonists.

No one will argue that the American Revolution was one of the most significant events in shaping American ideology. The impact on the economy, sociological and ideological make-up of America are still seen in today's society. Many great minds have passed commentary on the causes and impacts of the American Revolution such as; Bernard Bailyn, Louis Hartz, Joyce Appleby, and Gordon Wood. This research examines why these experts believed what they did about the causes of the American Revolution and how we can correlate those causes to the economic and political crisis America is now facing in the 21st century as compared to the 18th century.

The relations between England and the British North American colonies could always be considered precarious. Prior to 1750 British essentially followed a policy of benign neglect and political autonomy in the American colonies. (Davidson p.97) The colonies were for the most part content with benign neglect policy, relishing in a “greater equality and representative government”(Davidson p.95) within the colonies. Competition among European Imperial nations began to effect British policy toward North America colonies causing rapid shifts from 1750 to 1776. During this period, the British Empire made a series of policy decision that sealed the fate of the British North American

In 46 Pages author Scott Liell is able to poignantly illustrate the colonies metamorphosis from a dependent arm of the English Empire to an independent country, the catalyst for which was Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Liell is able to not only articulate the turning point of the American consensus towards independence, but he also very intelligibly depicts the sentiments of all facets of colonial dogma and the torrential effect that Common Sense had in loosening the cement that held those beliefs. Using fantastic examples of the opinions of Tories, Whigs, and those ambivalent towards independence, Liell efficiently and

Leading up to the American Revolution, were a chain of events that created a spark in the colonists to obtain independence from Great Britain. The American Revolution could not be tied to one single event but instead by the feelings and determination brought on by this chain of disgraceful actions. Gordon S. Wood explains what he believes caused the rebellion of the American colonists from Great Britain and how those causes help explain the outcomes of the revolution in his essay, “Radical Possibilities of the American Revolution.” Wood argues that the colonists were motivated to rebel against the British monarchy due to their need to preserve their liberties and through this revolution a radical change in government and American life occurred.

This was of a British North America that stretched from Atlantic to Pacific, from the U.S. boarder to the Arctic hinterland. Britain not only rules the Colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Vancouver Island, and British Columbia, but it also asserted it's authority over all of the lands in the interior that were administered by the Hudson Bay Company. An evolutionary process which could bring all of these lands together under one Federal Government would create a country larger than the United States and with the best chances to stand up to U.S., Spanish and Russian encroachment upon British North America.

During the late 1700’s the American colonists waged a war for independance on the British arguing their fundamental liberties had been deprived. As the founding fathers declared themselves independent from Great Britain, and built their new nation, they quickly addressed their ambitions in the Constitution. However as the former colonists built their new nation, they decided their revolution ambitions needed pragmatic alterations. These objectives that the former colonists addressed in the Declaration of Independence were in one way or another modified, expanded upon, or subverted. The dispute of civil rights for the Colonists was expanded upon and subverted, in order to appeal to white property owning males. Furthermore the former Colonists wanted to create a form government in which the citizens had the power, this intention was expanded upon

Reid’s article sets out to find an explanation for the American Revolution; specifically, an economic one. As from his title he is attempting to analyze whether there was an economic burden affecting the American colonies at the time that would incentivize them to move away from the British government. He addresses the normal supply and demand model that is ubiquitous in most economic theory. He relates it to the British rule of the period and argues that this type of model does not adequately model the human factor of political activity that was likely a very large factor in the American Revolution. Reid argues that the supply-demand model “is static and incomplete: a shift in

American Exceptionalism is the concept that America is unique as well as superior to other countries due to its expansion of new lands while setting the country’s foundation. Exceptionalism does not make America unique, it gives it the identity it needs to become a world leader. The idea that America is a product of an essential mix of civil unrest, founding values, and relentless opportunists is hopeful but too optimistic. Rather America’s founding was an uprising that gave a plentiful breadcrumb trail of furthering independence. Great Britain was not in a financial situation that allowed it to micromanage all its separate colonies and the American colonists took preyed on this.