Shy's insightful book (actually a collection of essays) has become a classic among military historians of the American Revolution. Published in 1976, it largely marks the beginning of the "new military history" in American historiography, which stresses how profoundly wars change societies and how military policies always reflect the larger society’s social and political values. Shy provides a wide-ranging look at various topics concerning the War for Independence, including a thoughtful look a General Thomas Gage, the role of militia in the conflict, the military actions of American loyalists. The book (or selected essays) can work very well in an advanced undergraduate class on the Revolution.
Lehrman American Studies Center at ISI
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BOOK
A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence
| Author: | John Shy |
| Notes: | Cover title: A people numerous & armed.Includes bibliographical references (p. 299-344) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0472094319 |
| Publication Info: | [Ann Arbor] : University of Michigan Press, c1990. |
Subjects
Periods
- American Revolutionary War(1775–1783)
Modules
Publisher's Description:
Americans like to think of themselves as a peaceful and peace-loving people, and in remembering their own revolutionary past, American historians have long tended to focus on colonial origins and Constitutional aftermath, neglecting the fact that the American Revolution was a long, hard war. In this book, John Shy shifts the focus to the Revolutionary War and explores the ways in which the experience of that war was entangled with both the causes and the consequences of the Revolution itself. This is not a traditional military chronicle of battles and campaigns, but a series of essays that recapture the social, political, and even intellectual dimensions of the military effort that had created an American nation by 1783.
Phil Hamilton on Mar 28, 2009