Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775

By Bernhard Knollenberg and By Bernhard Knollenberg

Book Overview

In the fall of 2002, Liberty Fund published noted historian Bernhard Knollenberg's Origin of the American Revolution. Now Liberty Fund proudly announces the publication of the second volume of Knollenberg's masterwork on the American Revolution.

Knollenberg describes Growth of the American Revolution as ". . . an Account of the Change in the Minds and Hearts of a Majority of the People of the Thirteen Colonies Who Rebelled against Great Britain in 1775, together with a description of the Provocative Conduct of the British Parliament and Government Accounting for this Change and the Colonists' Responses to the said Conduct."

Continuing the work Knollenberg began in the first book, Growth of the American Revolution covers the period from the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 to the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Taken together, these volumes present a cogent and authoritative history from an objective and scholarly point of view.

Bernhard Knollenberg practiced law for twenty-two years in New York City before leaving to direct the Yale University Library in 1938. He was the senior deputy administrator of the United States Lend-Lease Administration in Washington, D.C., and later a Division Deputy in the O.S.S., during World War II. Thereafter, he dedicated his time to historical research and writing about the American Revolution. He is also the author of Washington and the Revolution; Pioneering Sketches of the Upper Whitewater Valley: Quaker Stronghold of the West; and Franklin, Jonathan Williams, and William Pitt. Bernhard Knollenberg died in 1973.

Bernard W. Sheehan is Professor emeritus of history at Indiana University and past editor of the Indiana Magazine of History.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865974160
• ISBN13: 9780865974166
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Liberty Fund
• Length: 675 Pages
• Weight: 2.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Postsecondary to Grade 5

Customer Reviews

Causes and effects

Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775 by Bernhard Knollenberg Liberty Fund, published 1975 Lawyer turned Historian, Bernhard Knollenberg's final book is a continuation of his Origins of the American Revolution: 1759-1766. The work's intent is to be "an Account of the Change in the Minds and Hearts of a Majority of the people in the Thirteen colonies" (ii). Its narrative focuses heavily on the imperial policies of the British Government and the misunderstandings that permeated communications between the Colonies and the Mother Country. This learned work contains much that is useful to any serious scholar of the American Revolution. There is a chronology of events followed by thirty-two chapters of narrative. The book concludes with 27 appendices and over two hundred pages of notes and bibliographic entries. The organization of the work is a cause of confusion, as the reader is required to skip back and forth between the main text and the back matter in order to keep the narrative flowing. The exhaustive notes show that Knollenberg has consulted primary and secondary sources in both America and England. They provide the reader will a clear guide for obtaining additional information. British and American relations had begun to decline during the period of the French and Indian war. Imperial policy repeatedly provoked a sharp outcry from colonists and generated increasing bad will on both side. The failure of the British government to recognize that the colonies were viable entities with their own goals meant that the imperial bond was irreparably damaged. Growth of the American Revolution: 1766-1775, offers a conventional perspective on the events leading up to the separation of America from England: Imperial intransigence combined with economic divergence of interests. For all its conventionality, it provides such a strong breadth of material and plain style as to make it a useful tool for academics and an enjoyable narrative for general readers.

An expansive and scholarly work

Very strongly recommended for academic and community library American History collections, Growth Of The American Revolution: 1766-1775 by Bernhard Knollenberg (Professor Emeritus of History, Indiana University) is an impressively in-depth and informative study of American revolutionary history from the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 to the outbreak of violence at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Delineating key events and incorporating a discussion of the historiography, Growth Of The American Revolution: 1766-1775 is an expansive and scholarly work so heavily researched that the extensive notes to the chapters take up almost as many pages as the chapters themselves.