The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789
1982 American history book by Robert Middlekauff / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 is a nonfiction book about the American Revolution written by American historian Robert Middlekauff. Covering the history of the American Revolution from around 1760 through to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, The Glorious Cause focuses mainly on the military history of the American Revolutionary War and on the leadership of Continental Army leader George Washington. Middlekauff writes with overt sympathy for the revolutionary cause. His detailed coverage of the war emphasizes its physical brutality.
Author | Robert Middlekauff |
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Series | The Oxford History of the United States |
Genre | Narrative history |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Publication date | June 3, 1982 (original) February 1, 2005 (revised) |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Pages | 712 |
ISBN | 0-19-502921-6 |
Preceded by | Imperial America, 1672–1764 (planned; unreleased) |
Followed by | Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 |
First released as a clothbound hardcover in 1982, The Glorious Cause was the first volume to be published in the Oxford History of the United States series (though a chronologically prior volume about the colonial history of the United States was and remains planned). Although editors C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter had embarked on the series in 1961, multiple other candidates to write the volume on the American Revolution fell through before Middlekauff was assigned to the task in the 1970s.
Multiple reviewers praised The Glorious Cause's style and readability, deeming it accessible to lay audiences and exciting to read. There were other assessments that were divided. Multiple reviewers criticized the absence of social history and the limited coverage of Loyalists,[lower-alpha 1] women, American Indians, and Black people. There were others who averred that the book ably synthesized the scholarship on the American Revolution and praised it as an overall history of the period. Reviews described the book as a traditionalist reassertion of the Whig view of history[lower-alpha 2] or as a novel contribution to new developments in political and military history. The Glorious Cause was a finalist for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize.
In 2005, Oxford University Press published a revised edition of The Glorious Cause. The new edition contains more social history, including coverage of American Indians, Black people, Loyalists, and women, though it remains focused on politics, war, and constitutionalism. The Library Journal and The Atlantic praised the revised edition's narrative and style.