****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The great scholar and historian of the early American history, professor Jack Rakove, has succeeded in writing a history about the American Revolution and its major, although some less well-known, revolutionary characters. The success of this dense and scholarly, though a very much readable work lies in its successful fusion of a serious political and historical interpretation, and a narrative. It is therefore at once a fast-paced and lively narrative, coupled with an interpretive study of the revolutionary era and its major characters. Such a feat is usually difficult to pull off, but Jack Rakove succeeds where many others have and will continue to fail.The book begins with a detailed narrative of the politics preceding the Revolution and events that led to the breakdown in relations between the colonies and Great Britain. The succeeding chapters are organized in a way that every chapter addresses particular facets and themes of the Revolutionary era through particular characters. The book contains a chapter about: General G. Washington, J. Madison, T. Jefferson, A. Hamilton, B. Franklin/J. Adams/J. Jay, and lesser well-known figures like the Laurens family, Dickinson, Morris and several others.There are 2 particular aspects of Jack Rakove as a historian and a scholar that make him great: he is extremely detail-oriented and nuanced in his narrative and the accompanying political interpretation of events and characters; and he is genuinely neutral and objective in his interpretations and rarely, if ever, makes any definitive conclusions (let alone bold ones). These traits make him my absolute favorite historian!I highly recommend this book to any student of history. Also, consider Jack Rakove's even more serious, Pulitzer Prize winning book: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Meanings-Politics-Making-Constitution/dp/0679781218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358652050&sr=8-1&keywords=original+meanings
