Joseph J. Ellis on The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783

Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

(9/22/21) George Washington is said to have remarked that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the American Revolution would be accused of writing fiction. Of course, no one called the uprising from American colonists by that name or referred to the struggle as the Revolutionary War at the time. John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radical change without the consent of the colonies. In his new book The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning historical scholar Joseph J. Ellis of Mount Holyoke College takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783, recovering a war more brutal than anything we learned in grade school. Join us for a critical look at the stories we have long told about our origins as a nation in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.