In a collection of twelve essays Bailyn reexamines the background, origins, character, and legacy of the American Revolution through the lives of eight representative figures: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, the Tory Thomas Hutchinson, three clergymen--Andrew Eliot, Jonathan Mayhew, and Stephen Johnson--and an obscure Boston shopkeeper, Harbottle Dorr. Bailyn then presents four essays of interpretation on the origins of the Revolution, its development, and its consequences. His last essay shows how the Constitution was the Revolution's culmination and fulfillment--a lasting framework for the constructive use of power.
PRAISE FOR Faces of Revolution:
"The foremost historian of the American Revolution, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, provides an extraordinarily lucid and informative representation of the revolutionary age ... elegant and persuasive."
--Chicago Tribune
"A wonderful collection ... Bailyn explores revolutionary action as a study in character.... The reader can only marvel as the elusive elements of historical experience are composed before their eyes into masterful explanations."
--Newsday
CONTENTS
Part One: Personalities
1. John Adams, "It Is My Destiny to Dig Treasures with My Own Fingers"
2. Thomas Jefferson, "No American Should Come to Europe under 30 Years of Age"
3. Thomas Hutchinson, "My Temper Does Not Incline to Enthusiasm"
4. Thomas Paine, "Prepare in Time an Asylum for Mankind"
5. The Index and Commentaries of Harbottle Dorr, "Oh the Villain!"
6. RELIGION AND REVOLUTION: THREE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
A. Andrew Eliot, "It Is Possible We May Be Mistaken; Things May Appear Very Differently to Others As Upright As Ourselves"
B. Jonathan Mayhew, "God Is My Witness, That from the Bottom of My Heart I Detest These Proceedings"
C. Stephen Johnson, "There Arose a New King over Egypt, Which Knew Not Joseph"
Part Two: Themes
7. 1776 in Britain and America: A Year of Challenge--A World Transformed
8. Political Experience and Radical Ideas in 18th Century America
9. The Central Themes of the American Revolution
10. The Ideological Fulfillment of the American Revolution