Customer Reviews

A Few Bloody Noses: The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is not a light book, nor is it the objective historical record. It has a point of view, perhaps one might say two or three points of view. Some of it is old hat. The discussion of Lexington and Concord brings to mind Bill Cosby's routine about flipping the coin at the beginning of a game, "The colonials win the toss. They get to stand begind rocks and trees and shoot. The British must wear red uniforms, beat drums and march in rows." And when we get to Guilford Courtyard, the author would have us believe that Cornwallis' action of firing on his own men reveals his tactical skill, not his contempt for the pressed, enlisted and mercenary troops he commanded.
Still it is a useful book. Clearly it reveals that the experience of Vietnam is not an isolated fact. Determined locals, controlling vast territory (or having an available sanctuary) - the Carolina swamps , for example- can play havoc on a professional amy with doctrines of combat, rules of engagement, and extended supply lines. Especially when that local force has the element of time. And this brings up public opinion at home. The text has a wealth of documents from the period demonstrating a situation not unlike that which we experieced in the sixties and seventies. The slow turn of public opinion, the mounting cost in men, money and morale. It was all there then.
The final point, one worth our consideration in an era of disputed vote counts and court interference is the idea that the radicalism of the American Revolution was hijacked by the aristocratic and moneyed classes of this nation via such devices as the ecectoral college. A sort of "we had to destroy this revolution to save it" philosophy. Not a really new idea, but well put here. I am not so sure this book makes as much apology for the colonial system as other reviews imply, but it is after all the work of the losing side ( a rare thing in history), but maybe it's the work of the other winning side.

History is written by the winners, and this is British journalist Robert Harvey's attempt to rewrite it from the losers' perspective. Highly readable (often compellingly so), Harvey's account of the American Revolution has much to recommend it, and his narrative offers a nice refresher course in military history. The volume also includes extensive excerpts (with modernized spelling) from contemporary chronicles, lending the book a "you are there" touch.

Throughout, Harvey inveighs against Americans' "heroic view of the Revolution" and "the remarkably enduring nature of the myths." But many of his versions of episodes in American history seem to have been culled from textbooks written fifty years ago. (Of the more than 160 works listed in the bibliography, only 14 were written after 1980.) Not once does Harvey identify the writers with whom he is arguing: his summary of the "prevailing myths" are always prefaced by "It is asserted," "It is claimed," "It is widely believed." For example, he claims that "one of the darkest and least researched corners of the American Revolution was the treatment of the loyalists," but he seems entirely oblivious of the scholarly studies by Christopher New or William Nelson or even of the standard popular account by Christopher Moore. Although Harvey seems to regard his revisionism as startlingly original, there is little that is new here. Instead, he seems to be debating the ghosts of such long-dead historians as Carl Becker and George Trevelyan.

At times, too, he is so intent on offering a contrary view that he traps himself in a corner. For example, he argues that historians "have traditionally ascribed" Burgoynes's disastrous expedition to Albany and surrender at Saratoga "to massive incompetence on the part of the British." Instead, Harvey contends, the British loss "can be more readily explained by the professional jealousy of two rival commanders." Let's set aside the hair-splitting question of whether military leaders who favor spite over victory can still be considered "competent." I defy anyone to read the subsequent fifty pages and still conclude that Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe were anything other than stupendously inept. Even Harvey seems to abandon his initial claim, finally admitting that defeat was "due to Burgoyne's suicidal impulse to advance and attack."

The bulk of Harvey's book focuses on military strategy and the specifics of various battles. He gives relatively short shrift to the ideological, social, economic, or political underpinnings of the conflict. When he does offer such analysis, though, his reliance on work published in the United States undercuts his thesis that Americans have an uncritical view of their own origins. His section on the frontier war is little more than an abstract of Colin Calloway's "The American Revolution in Indian Country," and the chapter on the hypocrisy of slave-owners fighting for liberty summarizes Benjamin Quarles's 1961 study, "The Negro in the American Revolution." (The author seems unaware of the dozens of studies published since Quayle's that recount in far more critical terms the treatment of blacks by American rebels.)

Harvey characterizes American complaints against British rule as whining hypocrisy, and he (correctly) points out that British colonial rule was so minimal as to be hardly "oppressive"--in large part because London was unable to rule the colonies effectively from across the Atlantic Ocean. He also claims that the rebels barely won the war and, if it weren't for the French, probably would have lost it. Yet, even if the British had prevailed in the 1780s, it is certain America would have won independence in some future decade--as did Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, India, Iraq, and every major colonial possession ever governed by the United Kingdom. Harvey never pauses to step back and look at the bigger picture: that while British rule may not have been so bad, it was untenable, unwanted, unnecessary, and ultimately doomed to failure.

Overall, then, Harvey's stirring prose and strident arguments can't overcome the fact that his book is both fifty years behind the time and ill-considered in its implicit defense of colonialism.

Journalist Robert Harvey has attempted to write a "corrective" regarding the American Revolution; it's his belief that the Americans have mythologized and glorified the events and people involved, while the British have merely ignored them. Considering both trends to be negative and counter-productive, he has written this book with the hope of bringing both sides into better balance.

At the beginning Harvey states that "virtually every common assumption has to be substantially modified, if not rejected." Some of these "assumptions" that he challenges include: Americans were not just motivated by a love of liberty, but more by economic self-interest and internal social unrest; a large number of Americans opposed resistance to Britain (8% of the population left America after the war); British commanders were incompetent while America's were geniuses; Saratoga was "the turning point" of the War; and French intervention "saved" the colonies from destruction. Harvey's most compelling argument regarding these objections is with the French intervention: he points out, and it makes sense, that when the French decided to back the American cause, it forced the British to concentrate its naval power off the European continent rather than against the colonies. The least compelling concerns his dismissing the British military leaders as being "merely" arrogant or lazy or overconfident - faults in generals that have wrecked many an army.

Harvey is usually pretty fair-minded, and instead of totally debunking standard beliefs (he points out Washington's failures in the War, which the mythologists try to ignore, but recognizes his strengths, too), he re-examines them in a more critical light. I thought his final chapter on the creation of the Constitution after the country almost fell to anarchy, bankruptcy, and internal revolt after the British were defeated to be the best. He is quick to point out that the truly amazing thing about the Constitution and the "American experiment" in democracy was how they were able to combine individual freedoms with a set body of laws, to put controls on what undoubtedly would have spun off into total chaos. He is very impressed with how the Constitution was hammered out and what it finally meant for a free republic - as we all should still be today. Harvey writes engagingly and with verve, and his book is a most interesting one. Whether his goals in writing the book were ever actually achieved (see my first paragraph above), it's hard to say (my guess would be doubtful), I personally got much pleasure from reading it. Recommended.

How can I defend 5 stars with my title? Well, there is much to learn here as to how foreigners look at us, treat us as stupid little children, claim that everything we know about our own history is false, and from the author's perspective, how the British really do know everything and why we should let them rule the world. Nearly everything is false, slanted, spun, or otherwise fabricated -- but it is important to know because many people believe this nonsense. When you read this book, keep other references handy like Phillips' "The Cousin's Wars", Flood's "Rise And Fight Again", Burrows' "Forgotten Patriots", Middlekauff's "The Glorious Cause", Ferling's "A Leap in the Dark", Marshall's "Washington", Miller's "Origins of the American Revolution" and whatever other references you have.

Why foreigners believe they know everything that is wrong with the United States and find a ready market for their tomes here is beyond me. But they do. First of all, we are not ignorant of the "warts" on the Founding Fathers and do not believe Washington was a military genius. In fact, I know of no American historian who would say that. I vividly remember my first book on the Revolutionary War, Coffin's "The Boys of '76" that I read when I was eight years old. At the time I was thunderstruck at the many defeats suffered by the patriots, actually a majority of the battles, and have never been under illusions concerning the Revolutionary War since. Harvey's "illusions" are rather what he EXPECTS the Americans to believe if they were British and one were talking about British history. A note to Mr. Harvey -- please do not ascribe your shortcomings to us.

It is difficult to know where to begin with this review. One can almost pick out any page at random and argue over the content. George III was not some benign democratic monarch only wishing to inflict "a few bloody noses" on colonial troublemakers and bring the rest into line in the world's best government (see "Forgotten Patriots"). And yes, self-interest played a role in the patriot uprising, but the basic tenent of the idea of freedon is to be able to pursue one's self-interest without interference from government. Somehow the author doesn't understand that. The author brings forth Lee, Conway and Gates as "...all fell from stars to ignominious discredit...". Gee, Lee and Conway made only negative contributions in the war, and Gates was fortunate to have others (most notably Arnold) fight his only victory (Saratoga) for him. They were "stars"? And Knox was an uneven general (see Germantown) rather than the consistent hero the author makes him out to be.

The author's equating of the Revolutionary War with Vietnam betrays his total bankruptcy in understanding either conflict. Vietnam was not an American colony peopled by American colonists, Vietnam did not possess the approximately 2/3rds of its population unwilling to fight (in the Revolutionary War the idea that 1/3 were patriots, 1/3 loyalists and 1/3 neutral is roughly accurate and although many historians argue over the exact percentages, these were the major divisions), and after Tet, the Vietnam War was fought largely against North Vietnamese regulars, not domestic rebels. Nor did the Vietnamese and Americans come from the same racial stock, possess a common language, enjoy the same general Protestant religious base, or even share a common heritage in law. But no matter -- at least not for the author.

The author states that (based on his work) "Virtually every common assumption has to be substantially modified, if not rejected." Unbelievable hubris! The author writes one book on a subject and every common assumption on that war has to be modified or rejected? I wonder what he would say about an American author writing a book on the English Civil War in the 1600s if the American author made such a preposterous statement.

Maybe that means every one of his common assumptions, but let's start with the first and most important: that the United States won its independence from England. There are American historians who would argue that the French intervention was decisive. That probably is true, but it would not have happened had the patriots not defeated Burgoyne and captured his army. Or another that many American historians recognize -- that support in England itself, especially in London, was critical to maintaining the revolution on life support. But in fact, without the patriots' insensitivity to losses and ability to endure adversity, we'd still be in the Commonwealth today -- apparently where the author wants us. Up to one patriot in five was killed, died of wounds, died in captivity or soon after release, or from sickness during the war -- an almost unheard of level of fatalities in war; and surprise, apparently the author knows that. But hang in there, Harvey will tell us that it was England who won the Battle of Bunker Hill (Howe's comments to the contrary), that Lexington and Concord were well organized and efficient ambushes (although there were no British casualties at Lexington), and that the constitutional convention was the ultimate defeat to the patriot cause (now I'm really speechless.)

I would argue with almost every polemical point the author makes, with the added comment that he declined to give sources or refer the reader to where he obtained his inaccurate information. No doubt the author has good reasons for this upon which I do not wish to speculate. He does present a half-way reasonable bibliography, but I doubt that he read any of them. A Google search would do as well.

So read this book and then put it on the shelf with a product warning label that it is a prime example of the revisionist tripe being propounded about the US and its history by foreigners today -- or better yet, simply "Reading This is Hazardous to Your Health."

As someone who isn't very familiar with the American Revolution, I was looking for a summary history, preferably one that didn't get bogged down in the mythology that all too often surrounds old wars. Harvey's book fit the requirements. He summarizes the war well, though admittedly from a British perspective. He also provides a "reality check" of sorts for what we Americans have been taught to believe happened. Washington still comes out a hero, but one with noticeably fewer Godlike qualities, and a man who actually made some serious mistakes. Harvey also defends the Loyalists as not the Devils they are often painted to be. And, he points out that the British actually won most of the battles.

A couple of interesting ideas, the French really won the war for the Americans, and a lot of those American "lovers of freedom"
also loved the idea of slavery. Hmmm. The British's experience in the Colonies was very similar to the Americans experiences in Vietnam a couple of hundred years later.

I'd definitely recommend the book.

If you like to believe our Founding Fathers, as well as all Americans in the 1770s and 1780s, were the angels depicted in our elementary school textbooks, then you probably should not read this book. They all had their faults and the moral issues were not the only reason men fought (or didn't fight) to gain independence from Great Britain.

Certainly many of the myths of our country's founding and the events preceding, during, and after the Revolutionary War should be exposed as such and the truth taught... But this book sometimes does as much to support some of those myths as it does to expose others. In fact, numerous books by revisionist historians have done an excellent job of documenting the falseness of some American myths that Harvey continues to mention in his book as events or actions that supposedly occurred. Harvey appears to use the criteria that anything that supports his premise that Americans were stupid to split from the British Empire, passes the test of truthfulness.

I love American history, but I am most fond of the revisionist works that many historians are producing that are setting that history straight. But when you do a revisionist work, it is not enough to say that "This is what really happened," with your proof being "Because I said so." This is the gist of what is wrong with Harvey's book. He lists dozens of work in his "Select Bibliography," but not one single citation to show why what he says has any truth to it.

This work is full of Harvey's personal opinions, unsupported by any facts that he dares to cite. It is my opinion that he uses enough truth or interjects praise of people or events to win you over to his premise, then slips in personal opinions that are unsupported but which are meant to demean people or events during the period covered by the book. I could offer examples, but there are so many I am at a loss which to select. However, let's pick on poor John Hancock. As Harvey describes him he was a key figure in the Revolutionary cause, but then goes on to use the adjective "arrogant" numerous times when mentioning Hancock. Why? Surely, there must be more reason than the size of Hancock's signature on the Declaration of Independence.

While I am enjoying the book, as I do any revisionist history even when I do not completely agree with it, I would say this to Harvey who often compares my country's revolution to the war in Viet Nam. "I was a USMC officer who served in the Viet Nam War over 35 years ago. My country lost the war. I accept this and have learned to live with it. Maybe we deserved to lose it. Your country lost the Revolutionary War over 220 years ago. Isn't it time you got over it?"

Apparently not, as his book tastes of sour grapes in too many places.

The varied reader reactions contained in the reviews below aptly illustrate the nature of Harvey's book. Personally I enjoyed it. It's an entertaining read, despite its academic flaws (see other reviews). Yes, it is definitely written from a personal point of view, but that's part of what makes it interesting. The very low ratings given by several reviewers appear to reflect either their own personal points of view or a misunderstanding of the book's projected audience. It is not an academic book but a popularization, in the vein of a mildly controversial and amusing PBS documentary. (Not the ten-hour "definitive series", just "An Idiosyncratic View of the War by Robert Harvey".) I certainly wouldn't recommend it as the first or only book to a novice, but it has some undeniable strengths. Not the least of these is the colorful manner in which he portrays British commanders who all too often appear in American books as flat cardboard characters. A fun read.

If you want a pro-British, almost anti-American view of the Revolutionary War, this book by a British Author fills the bill. He views Saratoga as not the "Turning Point" but a British defeat solely caused by the arrogance of Genl Burgoyne. For the author, Yorktown is not the final victory, but merely the "Turning Point". The Continental Congress is described as "that motley group".

A very intersting read. Given his style, I would expect the author to describe Dunkirk in 1940 as "an advance in an alternative direction."

At last, a book about the American War that scrapes away all that patriotic, propaganda surrounding this conflict for the last two-hundred years and produces an unbiased, accurate and honest version of events!

Most American writers would have you believe that the British were military inept buffoons during this war, but that isn't true. In fact, the British won most of the War's battles, the American Rebels spent most of the war on the defensive and were saved by the military aid of the King of France!

Another myth that's destroyed here is the idea that the Rebels won the war by sniping at the dumb British redcoats from behind trees with accurate rifles. In fact, BOTH sides used rifles, but mostly smooth-bore muskets. Therefore, the Rebels never had any range advantage whatsoever.

The Rebel commander-in-chief, George Washington, is also exposed as a mediocre general who lost two-thirds of the battles he fought against the British and only won the ones he did when he had a large numerical advantage. Washington isn't the great military genius his admirers would have us all believe.

Also, and perhaps most interestingly, the myth about 'British tyranny' provoking the American Colonies to rebel is examined and smashed. In fact, the American Colonies had all the freedoms that the British back home did. Trouble started when a radical, hard-line group of the American elite came to power and wanted to break away from Britain to pursue their own agenda. Only when this was refused did the cries about 'British tyranny' begin.

Great book! Acquire and read if you want to know the REAL American War, other than nonsense like Mel Gibson's 'The Patriot'!

I enjoyed the book because it was fresh -- but not fresh enough to recommend it to others due to significant inaccuracies in the historical record which forces you to consider how mch of the book is inaccurate. These stem from the author's reading mostly secondary sources, many of them old (only a few were written in the past few years). For example, while excoriating the colonies for slavery and treatment and rejection of black troops, he ignores a regiment in Rhode Island and passes over a recently uncovered plan to infect as many as 25,000 slaves in Virginia, on purpose, with smallpox -- and this may have worked, which would put the death toll greater than all deaths on the colonial side in the war. Rather than go through everything, the wrost part is this secondary scholarship, the best is a journalist's ability to see through too many facts, in particular his drawing up of Washington as a 100% political figure with clear personal aims and motives in much of his behavior. Unless you have read ten or more other books on the Revolution, leave this off your list.