The Cambridge History of the American Revolution

Volume 2, Revolution
Edited by Marjoleine Kars, Michael A. McDonnell, Andrew M. Schocket
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Expected online publication date:

January 2026

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01 October 2026
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The second volume focuses on the years of upheaval during the American Revolution between 1775 and 1789. It breaks new ground by surveying a wide range of internal conflicts in the thirteen colonies, the trauma of a bloody war and its consequences, as well as the continental, hemispheric, and global forces shaping warfare and politics in this era. Together, the essays expand our understanding of how various people navigated military occupation, community conflict, governmental paralysis, interpersonal relationships, institutional collapse, and the slipperiness of allegiances. Through sweeping interpretative essays and micro-history viewpoints, the volume highlights the interplay of class, race, and gender in a wartime context and how these dynamics played out and were influenced by broader geopolitical developments. The depths of division and grand possibilities are explored – and interrupt our long-standing notions of traditional linear narratives of nation-making in this era.

Volume 3, Continuities, Changes, and Legacies
Edited by Marjoleine Kars, Michael A. McDonnell, Andrew M. Schocket
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Expected online publication date:

January 2026

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01 October 2026
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The third and final volume examines the American Revolution and its consequences, continuities, and legacies. Across thirty essays, ranging from broad, topical chapters to innovative, shorter 'viewpoints', the volume sheds light on how the American Revolution reverberated worldwide from the Constitution's ratification to twenty-first century cultural battles over the Revolution's meanings. Americans of all stripes adapted old rituals and structures to national independence, new rights, and republican politics, while enslaved and Indigenous peoples contended with the nation's intensification of the exploitation of humans and land. The Revolution's global shockwaves buffeted empires and the people who resisted them. From the eighteenth century to today, Americans and people across the world have contested how we remember the American Revolution.

Volume 1, Revolutionary Contexts
Edited by Marjoleine Kars, Michael A. McDonnell, Andrew M. Schocket
Coming soon
Expected online publication date:

January 2026

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01 October 2026
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The first volume delves into how the context of the American Revolution was set, taking readers across North America and the world to reveal the far-flung people, events, institutions, cultures, and ideas that led to its inception. Through a global lens, the volume shows how empires struggled with political and economic reforms, as well as popular protest, while competing and warring with each other. On a continental scale, long-term environmental and economic structures, native peoples, colonial settlers, and their interactions set the parameters for revolutionary conflict. Focusing on the thirteen colonies, -particularly groups who are traditionally overlooked- the essays shed light on the specific milieus in which the Revolution took place, examining and reinterpreting the iconic events leading up to independence and war. A mixture of broad topical essays and short innovative “viewpoints”, together the essays question notions of American exceptionalism while emphasizing both change and continuity.

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