In today's United States, the legacy of the American Revolution
looms large. From presidential speeches to bestselling biographies,
from conservative politics to school pageants, everybody knows
something about the Revolution. Yet what was a messy, protracted,
divisive, and destructive war has calcified into a glorified
founding moment of the American nation. Disparate events with
equally diverse participants have been reduced to a few key scenes
and characters, presided over by well-meaning and wise old men.
Recollections of the Revolution did not always take today's
form. In this lively collection of essays, historians and literary
scholars consider how the first three generations of American
citizens interpreted their nation's origins. The volume introduces
readers to a host of individuals and groups both well known and
obscure, from Molly Pitcher and "forgotten father" John Dickinson
to African American Baptists in Georgia and antebellum pacifists.
They show how the memory of the Revolution became politicized early
in the nation's history, as different interests sought to harness
its meaning for their own ends. No single faction succeeded, and at
the outbreak of the Civil War the American people remained divided
over how to remember the Revolution.
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