History of the American Revolution: 1

by David Ramsay

Ramsay, David

Genres: American Revolution, American History

378 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1990

About the author

American physician, public official, and historian

Reviews

[Clinton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although there are many better histories of this period, this book deserves a read. Its unique feature is the perspective of the author. Ramsay lived through these times and had experiences of being arrested and exiled by the British. After the war he served in the first sessions of Congress, giving him personal access to some of the people we now read about as Founding Fathers, as well as documents in the Library of Congress. With this perspective, Ramsay provides excellent analysis of political events that changed the opinions of the people from being loyal subjects of King George to outright revolutionaries. His credibility on these matters is impeccable because he experienced them personally. Other historians don't have this advantage and omit coverage of events that Ramsay deems significant.

Ramsay was living in a turbulent time and this is reflected in his writing. He tends to shy away from topics that were then controversial and adds a unifying spin to others. Some may find the writing style and spelling archaic, but it's not at all difficult to understand. This isn't Chaucer.

Written shortly after the war, the book suffers from not having available all of the documentation available to modern historians and the exclusion of maps. Ramsay offers scant coverage of battles, choosing to focus on the impact the battle result had on politics and the national mindset. If you are looking for a general telling of the story of the Revolution, I recommend choosing a more recent study, such as "The Glorious Cause," but for Rev War buffs, this is a good read.

[Dan Gorman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certainly it's dated by our modern standards in regard to gender and race, and some of the grammar is a bit too archaic to still be genuinely compelling, but Ramsay's history is pretty solid. It is definitely different to read a book by a man who genuinely believed that God's providence had made the Revolution possible. The thing that makes the book really relevant 225 years after its publication is that Ramsay does not have a simplistic, one-cause explanation of why the Revolutionary War happened. He attributes independence to both inevitable differences between the colonies and Britain, and a series of fumbled British attempts to centralize imperial power, which alienated the colonists. Worth a read, though take his nationalistic sentiments with a large amount of salt.