The American Revolution: How Revolutionary Was It?

by George Athan Billias (editor)

By George Athan Billias from American Problem Studies

135 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

George Athan Billias was professor emeritus of American History at Clark University.

Reviews

[Indiana]

I read this book back in college for a history class on the American Revolution. I saved it because one of the essays in it containes one of my favorite quotes. The essay is "The Imperial School Approach" by Charles M. Andrews and it was published in 1926 in the American Historical Review. The quote is:

"A novelist has expressed the idea in saying: 'You cannot fight and beat revolutions as you can fight and beat nations. You can kill a man, but you simply can't killa rebel. For the proper rebel has an ideal of living, while your ideal is to kill him so that you may preserve yourself. And the reason why no revolution or religion has ever been beaten is that rebels die for something worth dying for, the future, but their enemies die only to preserve the past, and makers of history are always stronger than makers of empire.'"

I always wondered what novel the quote was from. I wish Andrews had cited the source. It must have been some popular historical fiction novel, not considered worthy of being cited by a "leading colonial scholar" from Yale in 1926.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good historiography of the American Revolution even if not current scholarship.