FROM SUBJECT TO CITIZEN

A historian dissects myths about the American Revolution with surprising results.

“The Die is cast.” With four simple words in his diary—written in 1773 after the dumping of 342 boxes of tea from three British ships into Boston Harbor—Founding Father John Adams voiced a growing sentiment that the 13 American colonies had had enough of British taxation and domination. However, few conflicts are more poorly understood that the American Revolution, argues Spannaus, the author of multiple books on the era, including Political Economy of the American Revolution (1977). Here, she expands on a series of blog posts, which she began in 2017 as “a challenge to my fellow American citizens” to look beyond persistent legends about the struggle. For instance, the Boston Tea Party—often presented as a tipping point—actually capped a decade of simmering anger over increasingly draconian restrictions on business and civil liberties. Nor was the revolutionary impulse shared by everyone, as Spannaus notes when she points out that the initial proposal to craft the Declaration of Independence passed by a mere 7-6 majority in the Second Continental Congress. Spannaus is at her most eloquent when refuting that the ideas of philosopher John Locke exerted the greatest influence on the Declaration; she confers that distinction on Swiss legal scholar Emer de Vattel. She notes that many Americans now interpret the Declaration to mean that citizens should “seek freedom from government, rather than the freedom to use government’s powers in order to pursue the common good.” This interpretation, she says, “violates the foundation of our liberty, which relies on our cooperation as a people for the general welfare and rights of all.” First and foremost, Spannaus’ book is a clarion call to “clear our heads” regarding the foundations of American ideals, especially during times in which the government ships citizens, against their will, to third countries, which parallels how King George III shipped colonists to England to quell what he saw as his subjects’ treasonous impulses. Spannaus makes such realities of history clear in her crisp narrative style.

Seemingly settled history comes alive with renewed vigor in this incisive overview.