I’m just noodling over an idea, perhaps not even an original one, but I’ve been acquiring and reading a number of books this last few years on American history, and given the tenor of this past year of national politics, I’ve been toying with the idea of “periods” of American history. That is, definable epochs fundamentally different from that which went before.
What triggered this particular thread is on the desk in front of my now. Kevin Phillips’ new book, 1775: A Good Year For Revolution, recently published by Viking.
In his preface, Why 1775, he writes:
Seventeen Seventy-Five…stands for the somewhat forgotten and widely misunderstood first year of the American Revolution. …