Definately a good educational read because there author include all the people that contributed to the revolution and not just the fouunding father.

This history of the American Revolution is written from an egalitarian perspective. It focuses less upon the Founding Fathers and more upon poor farmers and artisans, slaves, and Indians, all embroiled in the political ferment and the war. I learned a lot from this book, especially how violent a struggle and upheaval it was. It’s a bit long, but there is lots of storytelling as well as analysis. I’m no egalitarian or SJW, but these are stories worth telling.

I appreciate the detail Nash included in the work, and I thought the greater context of the Revolution was helpful. I did however, have a hard time following his train of thought and thought that his points were uneven at times. The work did not have a good sense of flow; I thought that the reader had to jump around at some points.

Read for American Revolution capstone

argues that the American Revolution was a “people’s revolution” and that the Revolution’s goals are incomplete and are still in the process of being achieved, passed down from generation to generation

Very informative read. Definitely not the fault of the author or the book itself, but I can't help thinking it would be more publicly recognized (have more than 42... 43 reviews) and probably have more sales if only it had been published 15 years later and had a different title that more pointedly reflected its discussion of class, race, and gender.

Nash's book provides an excellent recounting of all the people who are not present in many histories of the American Revolution. His book, therefore, may seem harsh on the successes of the revolution but it is also accurate in that for women, enslaved people, or freed African Americans, native Americans the revolution achieved very little.

Ok, I didn't actually finish the book. But what I did read, I enjoyed. HD's questions were just too much for me. It made reading the book more of a chore then enjoyable.

Nash focuses his history of the American Revolution not on the Founding Fathers handed to us by the mainstream historic memory, but instead on the middle and bottom of American colonial society. Why did the rock farmer in Connecticut or the cooper in North Carolina decide to make society anew? Who were the soldiers that Washington had to fight (and fight with)? Why did the Native Americans side with the British? Nash explores these questions in detail and provides a fresh look at what else was going on in the colonies as they broke away from Mother England. Nash's history challenges conventional thoughts on just how "great" the great men of the era (Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc) actually were. But it also explains why these greats acted in the manner they did - and what exactly was motivating their own self-interests in a free America. Nash concludes that our revolution is unfinished and I agree. We see it being fought in every era of our history, right down to today.

Nash's retelling of the American Revolution focuses on the disenfanchised: women, Negroes (slave and free), Native Americans, and men of modest means--mariners, artisans, small merchants, farmers. He relates these people's stories to the received narrative to describe how the people that won the war may have lost the revolution, as a real possibility existed at the time for the abolition of slavery, enhancement of the rights of women (though probably not full citizenship), honorable treatment of the natives and construction of a political/economic system that did not privilege wealth.

Nash doesn't denigrate (nor do I) what was achieved in the American Revolution, but only recounts what may have been a series of lost opportunities. My take is that although the War for Independance has been over for centuries, the Revolution is still underway. I highly recommend this book.

The Unknown American Revolution is chock full of facts you don’t know about the evolution of the revolutionary spirit in the American colonies.
Hint: the leather-apron men and other lower class members of what the elites contemptuously termed “the mob” had a lot to do with it.
Gary Nash gives full details demonstrating that there was a whole lot happening in the decades before the shoot-out on Lexington Green and the wrangling in Philadelphia in June and July of 1776.
There were a whole lot more folks—men and women—involved in addition to the so-called Founding Fathers.
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To British readers like me it's the "American War of Independence" and we know little about it except from the British point of view. Similarly, the Americans have little interest in the British perspective.
Nash's book, therefore, is an interesting slant on the subject. He tells the story through the struggles of the poor, the slaves and the "Indians" who fought for emancipation and democracy in the course of the revolution.

One of the best books on the American Revolution in recent years. Gary Nash has always been one of my favorite historians. You can almost guarantee that any book he writes will be groundbreaking. In this book, Nash takes a look at the American Revolution from the perspective of those that are often forgotten (Blacks, women, Native Americans, etc). It is an excellent view of the American Revolution from a perspective other than the traditional Founding Fathers. A must read for any fan of early American history.