American Revolution (Audiobook) | Date: 14 April 2011, 01:59
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Has there ever been a more unlikely war than the American Revolution?
Why did those 13 colonies, with nothing resembling a unified and trained army, and with no navy to speak of, believe they could defeat the most powerful nation on the planet?
And why was Britain, no matter how powerful, confident it could prevail despite these burdens:
[list][*]A 3,000-mile supply line for troops and provisions
[*]A "circuit of command" for time-critical orders that could consume three months or more
[*]The constant need to divert its forces, whether to protect against slave uprisings in the Caribbean or against the looming threat of the French on both sides of the Atlantic?
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Considerations like these are indicative of just how unlikely this conflict was, Professor Allen C. Guelzo notes in his gripping new course The American Revolution. And they are far from the only ones.
[list][*]Why did the British fight the way they did, "served up by seemingly unthinking generals in solid rows of walking targets while the Americans crouched Indian-style behind rocks and trees"? Why did the Americans end up fighting this same way?
[*]Why did George Washington, in an uncharacteristically fractious move, lash out angrily at his troops, labeling them misfits and mutineers?
[*]What moved King George III, even after Cornwallis had surrendered at Yorktown, to ask his secretary of state for America to put on paper the "mode which seems most feasible for conducting the war," clinging to a belief that the Americans might yet be subdued?
[*]And, finally, who really deserves the credit for defeating the British army?
[*]Was it the Continentals, gamely overcoming all odds?
[/list]Was it the French, entering on the American side not purely out of friendship but also as a first step in converting Britain's colonies into their own?
Or was it perhaps both of these factors—along with weather, terrain, timing, and sheer luck?
Above all, why was the American Revolution really won not in America at all, but in the Caribbean?
[hide=Course Lecture Titles]
[list][*]1. The Imperial Crisis, 1763–1773
[*]2. The Ancient Constitution
[*]3. "A Soldier What's Fit for a Soldier"
[*]4. "How the British Regulars Fired and Fled"
[*]5. Standoff in Boston, 1775
[*]6. Bunker Hill
[*]7. The King, the Conqueror, and the Coward
[*]8. Conquering Canada, Reconquering Boston
[*]9. Common Sense
[*]10. An Army Falls in Brooklyn
[*]11. "A Glorious Issue"
[*]12. Joy in Princeton
[*]13. "Congress Are Not a Fit Body"
[*]14. "America Is Not Subdued"
[*]15. "A Day Famous in the Annals of America"
[*]16. "Not Yet the Air of Soldiers"
[*]17. With Washington at Valley Forge
[*]18. The Widening War
[*]19. The French Menace
[*]20. Vain Hopes in the Carolinas
[*]21. "The Americans Fought Like Demons"
[*]22. The Reward of Loyalty
[*]23. A Sword for General Washington
[*]24. "It Is All Over"
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