Whirlwind; The American Revolution and the War That Won It Hardcover - 2015

New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press, 2015. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxii, 409, [1] pages. Slight wear to dust jacket edges. Contains Introduction, and 16 Chapters 1--On the Brink; 2--Changes in Imperial Policy and the Colonists' Thinking, 1759-1766; 3--A Plan for Governing and Quieting Them; 4--I Am Unwilling to Give Up That Duty to America; 5--1774--Year of Momentous Decisions; 6--The War Begins; 7--War Brings Crucial Changes in 1775; 8--America Declares Independence; 9--The New York Campaign in 1776; 10--The Campaigns of 1777; 11--The War Is Transformed in 1778; 12--The Longest Purse Will Win the War; 13--A Year of Disasters, 1780; 14--The Southern Theater in 1780-1781; 15--The Decisive Victory at Yorktown; 16-- Demobilization, Change, 1781-1783. Includes Select Bibliography, Notes, Index. Also includes several black and white full page maps, and 10 black and white and color portraits. John E. Ferling (born 1940) is a professor emeritus of history at the University of West Georgia. As a leading historian in the American Revolution and founding era, he has appeared in television documentaries. Derived from a Kirkus Review: From servants to citizens: a nuanced study of the American Revolution focused on how the war changed the way Americans saw themselves. Having written abundantly about the Revolutionary War, accomplished scholar Ferling employs his extensive knowledge to relay a tremendously complicated and multilayered story of the gradual embracing of ideas of independence by the once-loyal colonists. Economic incentives drove the colonists to question the relationship with the mother country. They were offended by having to pay for Britain's chronic warfare, furnish soldiers and then endure England's "coldhearted indifference" to matters of the colonists' "vital interests." Attempts by Britain to enforce imperial trade laws-by the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, one-third of England's trade was with the colonists-only led to more alarm that Britain was scheming to take away liberties. Little by little, the colonists began to react, and Ferling takes note of certain important early firebrands, e.g.-Virginia's Patrick Henry, Boston's Samuel Adams, John Dickinson and his "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania." Ferling effectively shows how the colonists' sense of themselves changed from the very bottom up. From deep in the provincial hamlets, they were organizing, training their militias and accepting more egalitarian proclivities and self-governing practices, such as freedom from the Anglican yoke. Ferling impressively demonstrates how the military reality eventually galvanized the fledgling country. A first-rate historian's masterful touch conveys the profound changes to colonists' "hearts and minds.".