The Accidental Patriots

Many Americans could have gone either way during the Revolution. Read two new books on the Revolution—Jane Kamensky’s "A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley" and Alan Taylor’s "American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804"—and you may be surprised to find that you don’t know whom you’re rooting for. Which is to say, you’ll feel like a typical colonist in the revolutionary era, filled with doubt and suspicious of both sides.
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