Curtis Jerry Smothers
Teacher . Editor . Poet . Writing Coach . Historian . Online Tutor

The American Revolution was more than a series of battles fought between colonists and British soldiers. It was also a revolution of ideas—about government, individual rights, independence, and what kind of nation might emerge when the fighting was over. This second collection looks more closely at the people, writings, turning points, and consequences that shaped the Revolution.

 

Here you’ll meet George Washington as both general and national figure, examine Thomas Paine’s powerful arguments for independence, revisit the Declaration of Independence, and follow the war through Saratoga to the eventual British surrender at Yorktown.

 

Finally, these articles consider the Revolution in a broader context: how it changed American political, social, and economic life, how it compared with the French Revolution that followed, and how separation from the British Empire fundamentally altered the future of the new United States.The shooting created a new country. The ideas helped determine what that country would become.