Historical Dictionary of Revolutionary America [Hardcover]

The gem is the excellent, well-organized bibliography, which makes the dictionary an outstanding research tool....Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers.This work is a well-researched volume.Entries are concise and many are very good...Mays (political science, The Citadel, South Carolina) covers not just the war of independence, but the political and social changes that led to it beginning in 1763, and the period between the end of hostilities and the implementation of the Constitution in 1789. In entries ranging from a sentence or two to the rare two pages, he identifies people, events, places, laws, institutions, and movements. His emphasis is on political, economic, and social issues; though some military matters are mentioned, he refers readers to more detailed military coverage in his Historical Dictionary of the American Revolution (1999). He includes extensive cross-referencing, but no index.Not just about the grievances that led to war nor the actual war itself, but more particularly the subsequent period of trial and error in which the thirteen states and those that followed were welded into the United States of America. In addition to the over 1100 dictionary entries on significant people and political, economic, and social events of the era, appendixes documenting the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, as well as listing all the Presidents of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, are included.The American Revolution was perhaps the most significant event in modern history. It forever demonstrated the ability of a significantly smaller group of people to rebel against their oppressors. On top of that it also gave birth to what would become the most powerful country in the world. And while these feats were impressive, it was the drafting of a constitution, the forging of a union between divided states, and the fashioning of a truly democratic ló: