This book brings together Lester D. Langley's personal and professional link to the long American Revolution in a narrative that spans more than 150 years and places the Revolution in multiple contexts-from the local to the transatlantic and hemispheric and from racial and gendered to political, social, economic, and cultural perspectives. It offers a reminder that we are an old republic but a young nation and shows how an awareness of that dynamic is critical to understanding our current political, cultural, and social malaise. The United States of America is still a work in progress.

A descendant on his father's side from a long line of Kentuckians, Langley grew up torn between a father who embodied the idea of the Revolution's poor white male driven by economic self-interest and racial prejudices and a devoted and pious mother who saw life and history as a morality play. The author's intellectual and professional "encounter" with the American Revolution came in the 1960s as a young historian specializing in U.S. foreign relations and Latin American history, an era when the U.S. encounter with the revolution in Cuba and with the civil rights movement at home served as a reminder of the lasting and troublesome legacy of a long American Revolution.

In a sweeping account that incorporates both the traditional, iconic literature on the Revolution and more recent works in U.S., Canadian, Latin American, Caribbean, and Atlantic world history, Langley addresses fundamental questions about the Revolution's meaning, continuing relevance, and far-reaching legacy.

About the Author

LESTER D. LANGLEY is a research professor of history emeritus at the University of Georgia. He is the author of The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 1750-1850 and America and the Americas: The United States in the Western Hemisphere (Georgia). He is also the general editor of the United States and the Americas series, published by the University of Georgia Press.

Reviews

The Long American Revolution and Its Legacy is an ambitious, thoroughly researched book by a respected scholar of the Atlantic world. Both scholars and lay readers will appreciate this volume, and even specialists in the field will find thoughtful new observations to ponder. Langley writes elegantly and clearly. Smart, fresh, and persuasive.

* author of Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America *

Langley raises a slew of terribly interesting questions, and one suspects that graduate students. . . as well as scholars seeking out fresh perspectives on these issues, would benefit from perusing The Long American Revolution.

* The North Carolina Historical Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780820355740
Author Lester D. Langley
Format Paperback
Page Count 312
Imprint University of Georgia Press
Publisher University of Georgia Press