The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America - Softcover

"Nash is a fluent writer... he is particularly good at describing the colonial context for the American Revolution: a brutal society of rapid growth, radical religious movements, bitter class antagonism" (Dominic Sandbrook Daily Telegraph)

"Engaging... Nash has the 'reigning master narrative' of the War of Independence firmly in his sights... Building on recent research - generously acknowledged - Nash introduces us to a colourful ensemble of agrarian protesters, city mobs, opinionated slaves, itinerant preachers, outspoken women, and thoughtful tribal chiefs... Addictive" (Brendan Simms Sunday Telegraph)

"The creation of the USA was a pivotal event. Gary Nash has done well to remind us with this excellent, scholarly book that its birth was long, slow, messy and painful. And that it was the ordinary folk, Patriot and Tory, who did most of the dying" (George Rosie Sunday Herald)

"Fascinating... the canonical record has thrown out all sense of the genuine intellectual and political ferment which made this a real and important revolution" (Scotsman)

In 1775, war broke out between the British and the American colonists. By 1776 the colonists had declared themselves independent and in 1783, following a long and bloody conflict, Britain was forced to recognise the independence of the United States.The Founding Fathers - those men who signed the Declaration of Independence against Britain - may have led the charge, but the energy to raise a revolt emerged from all classes and races of American society.

This remarkable new book not only tells the story of the Revolutionary war, but plunges us into the swirl of ideology, grievance, outrage and hope that animated the Revolutionary decades. It tells of the efforts of a wide variety of men and women who stepped forward amidst a discouraging, debilitating, but ultimately successful war to set a new course for the new country- one free of entrenched class hostilities, religious bigotry and racism.

The people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of the country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become a crucial and fundamental part of America's inheritance.