From Resistance To Revolution: Colonial Radicals & The Development Of American Opposition To Bri

Pauline Maier

W. W. Norton & Company, 1991 - History - 318 pages

"An intellectual interpretation of the American revolution that raises it to a new height of comprehensiveness and significance. A superbly detailed account of the ideological escalation . . . that brought Americans to revolution." —Gordon S. Wood, New York Times Book Review

In this classic account of the American revolution, Pauline Maier traces the step-by-step process through which the extra-legal institutions of the colonial resistance movement assumed authority from the British. She follows the American Whigs as they moved by stages from the organized resistance of the Stamp Act crisis of 1765 through the non-importation associations of the late 1760s to the collapse of royal government after 1773, the implication of the king in a conspiracy against American liberties, and the consequent Declaration of Independence. Professor Maier's great achievement is to explain how Americans came to contemplate and establish their independence, guided by principle, reason, and experience.

Contents

• Popular Uprisings and Civil Authority: 3
• An Ideology of Resistance and Restraint: 27
• RESISTANCE: 49
• The Stamp Act Riots and Ordered Resistance 1765: 51
• The Intercolonial Sons of Liberty and Organized Resistance 17651766: 77
• Resistance in Transition 17671770: 113
• FROM RESISTANCE TO REVOLUTION: 159
• The International Sons of Liberty and the Ministerial Plot 17681770: 161
• The Implication of the King 17701772: 198
• The Making of an American Revolution 17721776: 228
• Republicans By Choice: 271
• THE SONS OF LIBERTY OF 17651766: 297
• A LIST OF UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT SOURCES: 313
• INDEX: 319

About the author

Pauline Maier was born on April 27, 1938 in St. Paul, Minnesota. She received an undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Radcliffe College in 1960, studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science on a Fulbright scholarship, and received a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. She was a history professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for three decades. She wrote several books including From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776, The Old Revolutionaries: Political Lives in the Age of Samuel Adams, and American Sculpture: Making the Declaration of Independence. She won the George Washington Book Prize for Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788. She died of lung cancer on August 12, 2013 at the age of 75.

Bibliographic information

• Title: From Resistance To Revolution: Colonial Radicals & The Development Of American Opposition To Bri; Norton paperback
• Author: Pauline Maier
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991
• ISBN: 0393308251, 9780393308259
• Length: 318 pages
• Subjects: History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies); History / General; History / Military / General; History / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775); History / United States / Revolutionary Period (1775-1800)