1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910955618603321

Autore

Colbourn H. Trevor

Titolo

The lamp of experience : Whig history and the intellectual origins of the American Revolution / / Trevor Colbourn

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Indianapolis, : Liberty Fund, c1998

ISBN

1-61487-789-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (337 p.)

Disciplina

973.3/11

Soggetti

Statesmen - Books and reading - United States - History - 18th century

United States History Revolution, 1775-1783 Causes

Great Britain History Study and teaching United States History 18th century

Great Britain Politics and government Historiography

United States Intellectual life 18th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Originally published: Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press, 1965. With new introduction.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

pt. 1. The English heritage and the colonial historical view -- pt. 2. The revolutionary use of history.

Sommario/riassunto

In a landmark work, a leading scholar of the eighteenth century examines the ways in which an understanding of the nature of history influenced the thinking of the founding fathers.As Jack P. Greene has observed, " The Whig] conception saw the past as a continual struggle between liberty and virtue on one hand and arbitrary power and corruption on the other." Many founders found in this intellectual tradition what Josiah Quincy, Jr., called the "true old English liberty," and it was this Whig tradition--this conception of liberty--that the champions of American independence and crafters of the new republic sought to perpetuate. Colbourn supports his thesis--that "Independence was in large measure the product of the historical concepts of the men who made it"--by documenting what books were read most widely by the founding generation. He also cites diaries, personal correspondence, newspapers, and legislative records.Trevor Colbourn is President Emeritus of the University of Central Florida.