The Revolution After Two Hundred Years

Dirk Hoerder. Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts, 1765-1780. New York, San Francisco, London: Academic Press, 1977, 394 + xvi pp. Elizabeth R McCaughey. From Loyalist to Founding Father: The Political Odyssey of William Samuel Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. 362 + xi pp. Gary B. Nash. The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness and the Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. 548 + xv pp. Charles Royster. A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775-1783. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. 452 + xi pp. As Americans celebrated their nation's first centennial in 1876, they had before them George Bancroft's massive History of the United States, com- pleted five years before, to describe, in heroic terms, the story of American progress towards independence. They could look at Bancroft's work and know that truly there were giants in the world in those days but that those giants were merely the leaders of a proud and independent people dedicated to the search for freedom and justice. Bancroft, in other words, portrayed the nation's founders as their heirs wanted them portrayed and depicted the revolution as an inspiration to later generations. Since 1976, the people of the United States have been celebrating their second centennial; but the contribution of the historians to this event is almost such as to make one ask, where are you, George Bancroft, now that we need you

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