Informal Overview of Joyce Appleby's Recollections of the Early Republic

Since I currently have no major reading assignments in any of my classes, I have enjoyed the freedom of being able to read books of my own choosing (which is a rarity at the graduate level). Anyway one of the books that I just finished is an excellent mix of both primary and secondary source material on the early American republic. Joyce Appleby's Recollections of the Early Republic uses some of the best material available to demonstrate the convoluted nature of the early republic, not to mention the diverse opinions of its participants. Since the majority of the book consists of first hand accounts from the time period, the reader gets a personal view and not just a historical analysis.

The thing that struck me most about this book is the fact that so many people in early America, from diverse backgrounds, had many different views of the American Revolution. There was hardly a consensus amongst the people. The book gives a voice to so many of the traditional subalterns that are ignored in early American historiography.

For anyone that has succumbed to the delusion that the American Revolution was a unified movement, I would strongly recommend this book. The words of the actual people that lived the revolution will change your mind.