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THE CAUSE

Joseph J. Ellis

The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783

A culminating work on the American Founding by one of its leading historians which rethinks the American Revolution as we have known it.
George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the "American Revolution": former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radical change without their colonists' consent. With The Cause, Ellis takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783, recovering a war more brutal than any in American history save the Civil War and discovering a strange breed of "prudent" revolutionaries, whose prudence proved wise yet tragic when it came to slavery, the original sin that still haunts our land. Written with flair and drama, The Cause brings together a cast of familiar and forgotten characters who, taken together, challenge the story we have long told ourselves about our origins as a people and a nation. Joseph J. Ellis is the best-selling author of twelve previous books, including American Sphinx, which won the National Book Award, and Founding Brothers, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Plymouth, Vermont.
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Published 2021-09-21 by Liveright

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"The author offers a close look at key years in the country's history, with a special focus on unsung heroes who played outsize roles in the move for independence." Read more...

"[R]ichly detailed, multivoiced history . . . expert account [that] highlights the 'improvisational' nature of America's founding." Read more...

"Ellis's witty style and astute analysis make this essential reading for historians and enthusiasts at all levels who want to disentangle the complex historiography of the American Revolution." Read more...

"Masterly...[Ellis] deftly foreshadows all the issues that would complicate America's trajectory and ends with a historical cliffhanger: Would the Republic survive? It did, but only when the Constitution became the embodiment of The Cause....Can America be truly great if we are built on a foundation that includes slavery?....[Ellis] would say that while the Constitution contains that terrible defect, it also contains the cure for democracy's wrongs if we choose to use it." Read more...

Revolutionary Answers: The author of 'Founding Brothers' tries to capture the breadth of the War for Independence in a single narrative. Read more...

"With his characteristically graceful prose, Ellis offers a short, straightforward history of a critical decade in the nation's youth . . . It's hard to imagine a better-told brief history of the key years of the American Revolution."

"Ruing Washington's postwar hesitance to set an example by freeing his slaves, Ellis underscores the moral failings and deferrals that were then deemed necessary to ensure political unity. In all, a fresh and astute analysis of the American Revolution."

"[A] a speedy retelling of the nation's stumbling, fractured founding, through evocative profiles of British loyalists, slaves, Native Americans and soldiers uncertain of what was being founded." Read more...

"Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian Joseph J. Ellis superbly captures the issues, personalities and events of the American Revolution . . . Using rigorous scholarship, Ellis offers vivid portraits of and penetrating insights about this period in history, while challenging our conventional understandings of it . . . This riveting, highly recommended book by one of America's major historians will change how you see the American Revolution." Read more...

"The Cause comes across as a special gift, the book the author most wanted to write to the reader from the great scholar." Read more...