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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The War of Independence," John Fiske presents a detailed and nuanced analysis of the American Revolution, intertwining historical narrative with philosophical reflection. Fiske's literary style is characterized by eloquence and clarity, making complex historical events accessible to both scholarly and general audiences. He situates the conflict within the broader context of Enlightenment thought and national identity, exploring the ideological underpinnings that fueled the revolutionaries' struggle against British tyranny. Through an integrative approach, Fiske examines military strategies, pivotal battles, and the socio-political dynamics that shaped the young nation's fight for autonomy. John Fiske, a prominent American historian and philosopher, was deeply influenced by the intellectual currents of his time, including Darwinian theory and liberal democracy. His rich background in philosophy and history provided him with the analytical tools necessary to dissect the significance of the American Revolution. Fiske's commitment to understanding the past was rooted in a desire to elucidate the foundations of American democracy and uncover the lessons that history offers for contemporary society. Readers interested in a thorough exploration of the American Revolution will find "The War of Independence" highly engaging and illuminating. Fiske's insightful perspectives not only enhance our understanding of this pivotal event but also challenge us to reflect on the values that underpin our modern democratic ideals. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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The War of Independence
Table of Contents
Introduction
Freedom takes shape where imperial authority collides with local conviction. John Fiske’s The War of Independence presents a clear, compact account of the American Revolution, following the transformation of British colonies into a new nation between 1763 and 1783. Written in the late nineteenth century, it reflects a historian’s effort to make complex events intelligible to a broad readership. With an emphasis on explanation and synthesis, Fiske organizes political developments, military struggles, and diplomatic shifts into a coherent narrative. The result is an accessible introduction for readers seeking a reliable overview of causes, course, and consequences, framed by the intellectual currents that animated the era.
In genre, the book is narrative history, grounded in chronology and cause-and-effect, attentive to the Atlantic setting in which colonial and imperial interests intersected. Its stage encompasses the eastern seaboard of North America, London and Parliament, and the wider international scene that shaped strategy and opportunity. Composed in the late 1800s, it stands within a generation of works that sought to synthesize scholarship for general audiences. Fiske writes with a steady, instructive voice, moving from policy and protest to campaigns and councils, emphasizing clarity over exhaustive detail. Readers encounter a work designed to illuminate essentials rather than to pursue archival debates.
At its core, the book traces a straightforward premise: how a series of postwar imperial measures and colonial responses escalated into open conflict and, ultimately, independence. Fiske follows the progression from unsettled grievances to organized resistance and then to war, interweaving attention to governance, logistics, and diplomacy. The experience is that of a guided tour through pivotal years, with signposts marking shifts in momentum and meaning. The style is measured and explanatory, the mood confident yet restrained, aiming to clarify rather than to dramatize. The narrative’s structure helps readers keep orientation as events grow larger in scale and consequence.
Several themes run through the account. The tensions between representation and authority, rights and obligations, local autonomy and imperial oversight supply the drama of ideas behind the events. The book underscores how political thought translated into collective action, and how communities negotiated competing loyalties under pressure. It considers the difficulties of coordinating disparate colonies, raising resources, and sustaining resolve across years of uncertainty. It also attends to the international dimension, showing how events in Europe and across the Atlantic affected choices on American shores. In all, it links ideas, institutions, and action in a tightly woven historical tapestry.
Fiske’s approach is synthetic and didactic, assembling materials available to a nineteenth-century historian into a continuous, readable whole. His emphasis on sequence and explanation privileges clarity, noting turning points and their implications without overwhelming the reader with exhaustive data. The portrayal of leadership, strategy, and statecraft is designed to illustrate how decisions at critical moments shaped possibilities. Readers should also recognize that, like many works of its era, the perspective reflects the assumptions and emphases common to its time. Engaging with it alongside more recent scholarship can enrich understanding while preserving the value of Fiske’s coherent overview.
For contemporary readers, the book’s relevance lies in the questions it raises about sovereignty, representation, civic obligation, and the formation of national identity. It invites reflection on the fragility and resilience of political orders under strain, on the interplay between principle and pragmatism, and on how international dynamics can hinge on local choices. As a narrative crafted for a broad audience, it offers an entry point for those beginning to explore the period, while still rewarding readers interested in the architecture of argument and event. It encourages inquiry into origins without presuming to have the last word.
Approached today, The War of Independence serves as a reliable gateway to the American Revolution’s arc, presenting a compact synthesis that privileges coherence and comprehension. It situates foundational debates within a lived chronology, helping readers connect ideas to outcomes and context to change. The tone is formal yet welcoming, the organization clear, and the scope sufficient for orientation without immersion in minutiae. Whether read for background, for a classroom survey, or for personal interest, it clarifies how a colonial society confronted imperial reform and fashioned a separate path. In doing so, it keeps the story’s stakes steadily in view.
Synopsis
John Fiske’s The War of Independence presents a narrative history of the American Revolution, tracing the conflict from imperial tensions after 1763 through the peace of 1783. Fiske opens by describing the British Empire’s administrative challenges, the growth of colonial self-government, and the effect of the Seven Years War on imperial finance. He outlines the shift from salutary neglect to direct taxation, explaining measures such as the Sugar Act and Stamp Act and the colonial protests they stirred. The book introduces leading figures and institutions while emphasizing how geographic distance and differing constitutional understandings set the stage for a prolonged dispute.
The narrative advances through the widening constitutional controversy, covering parliamentary assertions of authority and colonial arguments about rights and representation. Fiske summarizes the Townshend duties and the resulting nonimportation agreements, the Boston Massacre, and the Tea Act that prompted the Boston Tea Party. He describes the Coercive Acts and their impact on Massachusetts, highlighting how they stimulated intercolonial cooperation. The First Continental Congress appears as a deliberative response, adopting petitions and organizing resistance. Throughout these chapters, Fiske presents the political debate as a conflict of legal principles and imperial policy, while noting the practical pressures felt in ports, assemblies, and town meetings.
With compromise failing, Fiske turns to the outbreak of war in 1775. He recounts the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord and the rapid mobilization of militia that initiated the siege of Boston. The costly battle of Bunker Hill demonstrated British tactical strength and colonial resolve. The Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington to command, and Fiske follows the early organization of the Continental Army. He notes the attempt at reconciliation through the Olive Branch Petition and the British Prohibitory Act that hardened positions. The arrival of heavy guns from Ticonderoga and British evacuation of Boston closed the war’s opening phase in New England.
Fiske then examines the movement toward independence and the strategic shift to the Middle Colonies. He describes changing sentiment in 1776, the influence of pamphleteering such as Common Sense, and the drafting and adoption of the Declaration of Independence. British commanders concentrated on New York, and the book details the campaign on Long Island, the defense and withdrawal from Manhattan, and the setbacks at Kips Bay, Harlem Heights, and White Plains. Fiske emphasizes the logistical challenges and the fragile state of the new army. Despite losses, the Continental forces preserved cohesion, preparing the ground for a critical winter counterstroke.
The turning of the tide in late 1776 and 1777 receives close attention. Fiske narrates the surprise at Trenton and the follow-up victory at Princeton, which restored morale and disrupted British plans in New Jersey. He then outlines the converging strategies of 1777, focusing on Burgoyne’s advance from Canada aimed at isolating New England. Key actions at Oriskany and Bennington weakened the British, and the Saratoga battles culminated in Burgoyne’s surrender. Fiske identifies Saratoga as a decisive point that altered diplomatic calculations, underscoring how battlefield outcomes and political objectives intertwined to shape the broader course of the war.
The alliance with France in 1778 shifts the conflict’s scope. Fiske covers the global dimensions that followed, including Spanish entry and naval engagements that constrained British operations. He describes the British evacuation of Philadelphia and the indecisive battle of Monmouth. The book surveys the war on the seas through figures like John Paul Jones and treats the frontier struggles in the West. Fiske also addresses internal strains within the American war effort, from supply shortages and depreciating currency to tensions among officers, such as the Conway Cabal. These chapters stress the endurance required to sustain a protracted, multinational war.
Attention then moves south, where British strategy sought to exploit perceived Loyalist strength. Fiske recounts the capture of Savannah and the fall of Charleston, the setback at Camden, and the emergence of partisan leaders including Marion, Sumter, and Pickens. He follows Nathanael Greene’s campaign, emphasizing his strategy of avoiding decisive defeat, stretching British logistics, and leveraging local support. Engagements such as Cowpens and Guilford Court House weakened Cornwallis despite tactical outcomes. The shifting battlefield and relentless attrition drew British forces into Virginia. Fiske presents this southern phase as pivotal in gradually eroding British operational advantages and reshaping the strategic balance.
Fiske’s narrative culminates with the convergence at Yorktown. He details the Franco American coordination between Washington and Rochambeau, the role of De Grasse’s fleet in controlling the Chesapeake, and the siege that compelled Cornwallis’s surrender. The book explains the political repercussions in Britain and the continuing scattered fighting while negotiations proceeded. On the American side, Fiske notes army discontent and financial strain, including the Newburgh crisis and efforts to maintain civil authority. He discusses the Articles of Confederation and the management of western lands, signaling the emerging challenges of governance even as military success made independence practically secure.
The concluding chapters address the Treaty of Paris and the shape of the postwar settlement. Fiske outlines boundaries, navigation and fishing rights, and provisions on debts and Loyalist property. He describes demobilization and the transformation from wartime coalition to peacetime union. The book closes by emphasizing the Revolution’s constitutional meaning, linking colonial traditions of self government to an independent national framework. While noting the weaknesses of the Confederation that would prompt further reforms, Fiske presents the war as an episode in the development of political liberty within the English speaking world. The overall message frames independence as both a military achievement and a durable civic settlement.
Historical Context
John Fiske’s The War of Independence is set amid the upheavals of 1763–1783 along the Atlantic seaboard of North America, from New England’s harbors to the tidewater South and the backcountry frontier. The narrative’s geography includes Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and key inland corridors along the Hudson and Delaware Rivers. It unfolds within the British Empire under George III, where colonial self-rule collided with imperial revenue demands after the Seven Years’ War. Indigenous homelands, enslaved communities, and transatlantic naval routes form the broader stage. Fiske situates these places within a constitutional struggle that becomes a full-scale war culminating in American independence and international recognition.
The imperial crisis began with Britain’s post-1763 reforms: the Proclamation Line of 1763, the Sugar Act (1764), and the Stamp Act (1765), which provoked colonial petitions and the Stamp Act Congress in New York. Repeal in 1766 was paired with the Declaratory Act, followed by Townshend duties (1767), nonimportation, and the Boston Massacre (1770). The Tea Act (1773) triggered the Boston Tea Party (16 December 1773), and Parliament retaliated with the Coercive Acts (1774), prompting the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Fiske presents these as a cumulative constitutional quarrel about taxation and representation, framing colonial resistance as the defense of English liberties against ministerial overreach.
Open warfare erupted at Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, followed by the Second Continental Congress and Washington’s appointment as commander-in-chief (June 1775). The costly British victory at Bunker Hill (17 June 1775) and the Siege of Boston culminated in the March 1776 evacuation after Henry Knox hauled Ticonderoga’s artillery to Dorchester Heights. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (January 1776) accelerated radicalization. Fiske connects these episodes to a transformation from protest to revolution, emphasizing the interplay of militia initiative and Continental leadership. He narrates Washington’s emerging authority as emblematic of disciplined republican virtue confronting a professional imperial army.
The Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776) coincided with Britain’s massive New York campaign. General Howe’s victory at Long Island (27 August 1776) forced an American retreat from Brooklyn Heights, through Manhattan and across New Jersey. Washington reversed morale with the Delaware crossing and Trenton (26 December 1776), then Princeton (3 January 1777), the "Ten Crucial Days" that preserved the army and the cause. Fiske dwells on Washington’s strategic prudence and audacity, arguing these actions stabilized a faltering revolution. He portrays the New York setbacks and winter campaigns as the crucible in which a national army, and national purpose, were forged.
The 1777 campaigns split: Howe seized Philadelphia after Brandywine (11 September) and Germantown (4 October), while Burgoyne’s northern thrust collapsed at Saratoga—Freeman’s Farm (19 September) and Bemis Heights (7 October)—ending in surrender on 17 October 1777. Saratoga triggered French recognition and the Treaties of Alliance and Amity (6 February 1778), globalizing the conflict as Spain (1779) and the Netherlands (1780) later joined the war against Britain. Meanwhile, Valley Forge (winter 1777–78) saw privation and professionalization under Baron von Steuben, culminating in Monmouth (28 June 1778). Fiske links Saratoga and Valley Forge to the revolution’s maturation: foreign aid and disciplined drill transformed survival into credible victory.
Ideological and institutional currents shaped the war’s politics. States drafted constitutions in 1776–1777—Virginia’s with Mason’s Declaration of Rights, Pennsylvania’s radically democratic charter—while the Articles of Confederation were adopted (15 November 1777) and ratified (1 March 1781). Financial crises and inflation produced "not worth a Continental" currency, prompting Robert Morris’s fiscal measures and the Bank of North America (1781). Loyalist resistance, Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775) promising freedom to enslaved men who fled to British lines, and Native alliances (Iroquois civil war; Cherokee campaigns in 1776) complicated the conflict. Fiske foregrounds republican governance and civic cohesion, though he treats Loyalist, African American, and Native experiences more sparingly than modern scholarship.
Britain’s southern strategy began with Savannah’s capture (29 December 1778) and the failed Franco-American siege (September–October 1779). Charleston fell on 12 May 1780; Gates’s defeat at Camden (16 August 1780) followed. Greene’s command (December 1780) produced a war of maneuver and partisans (Marion, Sumter). Cowpens (17 January 1781) shattered Tarleton’s legion, and Guilford Courthouse (15 March 1781) bloodied Cornwallis, who moved to Virginia. With Rochambeau and de Grasse, Washington besieged Yorktown (28 September–19 October 1781) after the Chesapeake naval victory (5 September). Armistice and preliminary articles were signed in Paris (30 November 1782), with the final Treaty of Paris on 3 September 1783. Fiske integrates Benedict Arnold’s 1780 treason as emblematic of fragile loyalties amid ultimate convergence on independence.
Fiske’s account works as a political critique by indicting parliamentary absolutism, ministerial corruption, and imperial centralization that ignored colonial constitutional rights. He celebrates civic virtue, decentralized initiative, and the disciplined leadership that made federal union plausible, highlighting logistical failures, currency collapse, and sectional frictions to reveal the confederation’s weaknesses. The narrative criticizes coercive occupation policies, reliance on Hessian auxiliaries, and punitive measures like the Coercive Acts, while praising coalition warfare and responsible civil-military relations. Although limited in addressing slavery and Indigenous dispossession, the book exposes the period’s deepest issues—representation, sovereignty, and national cohesion—as the crucible for an enduring republican order.
The War of Independence
PREFACE.
This little book does not contain the substance of the lectures on the American Revolution which I have delivered in so many parts of the United States since 1883. Those lectures, when completed and published, will make quite a detailed narrative; this book is but a sketch. It is hoped that it may prove useful to the higher classes in schools, as well as to teachers. When I was a boy I should have been glad to get hold of a brief account of the War for Independence that would have suggested answers to some of the questions that used to vex me. Was the conduct of the British government, in driving the Americans into rebellion, merely wanton aggression, or was it not rather a bungling attempt to solve a political problem which really needed to be solved? Why were New Jersey and the Hudson river so important? Why did the British armies make South Carolina their chief objective point after New York? Or how did Cornwallis happen to be at Yorktown when Washington made such a long leap and pounced upon him there? And so on. Such questions the old-fashioned text-books not only did not try to answer, they did not even recognize their existence. As to the large histories, they of course include so many details that it requires maturity of judgment to discriminate between the facts that are cardinal and those that are merely incidental. When I give lectures to schoolboys and schoolgirls, I observe that a reference to causes and effects always seems to heighten the interest of the story. I therefore offer them this little book, not as a rival but as an aid to the ordinary text-book. I am aware that a narrative so condensed must necessarily suffer from the omission of many picturesque and striking details. The world is so made that one often has to lose a little in one direction in order to gain something in another. This book is an experiment. If it seems to answer its purpose, I may follow it with others, treating other portions of American history in similar fashion.
Cambridge, February 11, 1889.
