He uses numerous quotes from source docs, and he does not imply his conclusions, he spells them out. He also writes in a relatively easy to read style that is academic but not too pedantic, and so it is easy for the student to follow and understand.
In the context of the course, this book ties in quite well. It explains a part of American history that has often been questioned, but not answered so effectively. The author uses his research to debunk some of the well-known myths of this time, such as the fact that South Carolina and Georgia were the main foes of abolition, and they had enough power to create animosity towards abolition. In fact, the author writes, "In fact, Georgia and less so South Carolina, were precariously situation in 1787 and had far greater need of a strong federal government than the rest of the states had need of them" (Nash, 1990, p. 27). Throughout the book, the author uses evidence such as this to show that other histories may not always be accurate, and that historians and readers should sometimes question the well-held believes that have been passed down from generation to generation. In this, the author helps explain to history students why they should questions such well-held beliefs, study the source docs, and come to their own conclusions, and that supports this course's context and assigned readings quite well.
Nash's book shows that this piece of history was determined by numerous factors, including economic forces, individuals, geography, and even societal views. The economics of slavery and ending it are clear. Even the founding fathers recognized that they need to compensate slave owners if they ended slavery, and the details of this compensation could never be agreed upon. At the time, slaves were used primarily in the very high labor crops of tobacco and cotton, and southern growers felt they simply could not survive economically without their slaves. However, there was much more to slavery and its perpetuation...
Nash's work may have contributed to the wider reading our modern texts include, rather than the revisionist version which paraphrases down to 'the North had to accept slavery against its will because the South would have balked from the new republic.' Our selection of texts, particularly the primary material, consider this dynamic with more balance than in the century and a half prior to Nash, if his historiography is true.
This happened because blacks had learnt that they no longer had to obey the people that illegitimately enslaved them. Slaves had been determined to fight for their freedom through any means possible, and, they took advantage of any opportunity that they had to become free. According to Nash, tens of thousands of slaves have left the American continent as the British forces advanced inland. Apparently, a great number of black
In fact, the American Revolution may have served to assert the natural rights of some people, but those people were limited to a class of white males. It is important to keep in mind that one of the ideological underpinnings of the Revolution was a challenge to imperialist ideals, and race-based oppression and slavery had long been major parts of the imperial system. Despite that, it is unfair to characterize
We would not accept such an assertion about any other historical notion. Who would say that the revolution was inevitable, without the fight of the patriots and the leadership of the Founding Fathers? Yes, the question of slavery was a contentious issue -- but it was just as contentious a hundred years later, a hundred more years of bondage for blacks, and a hundred more years of making the
Race and Revolution An iconoclastic figure in the study of American History, Gary Nash, who is Director of the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA, writes from a position of authority as he questions the history that many of us were taught during our primary and secondary educations. In Race and Revolution, Nash turns his keen vision toward the matter of slavery at the time our country was
Gary Powers Spy Plane Issue The Cold War has been called the twentieth century's 'longest-running international morality play.' It was a play that lasted decades and produced thousands of players, both major and small, as well as two critical scenes set in Cuba and Berlin. The full weight of the drama settled on one person, an American pilot named Francis Gary Powers. When Powers 'fell from the sky' outside the Soviet
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