The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 08

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
903K words
Chapters
91

Tags

English Originals World HistoryPolitics International RelationsDiplomatic DocumentPolitical IntrigueEpistolary FormArchivesHistorical CompilationFounding EraAmerican Revolution

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. 08 by Jared SparksAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: E201: History: America: Revolution (1775-1783), Release Date: Dec 1, 2008

Editor's review

This is Volume 8 of The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, edited by Jared Sparks, an electronic reprint of public-domain historical documents. Its value lies not in narrative flow but in the density of primary sources: official dispatches, urgent letters and negotiation records sit side by side, letting readers see directly how diplomatic decisions were made during the Revolution under incomplete information and time pressure. A highlight is that the documents preserve the epistolary form, making it easy to trace how the wording on a given issue changed across stages and to understand the complexity of allied coordination and foreign negotiation. It suits use as companion material for courses on American Revolution history and early diplomatic history, and for researchers doing a source survey before writing. Note that it is in the original English with no modern introduction; first-time readers should first build a basic historical framework, then read selectively by topic rather than straight through.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the opening note and table of contents first, then set a reading route by topic or correspondent instead of reading page by page.
  2. Jot down names, places and dates and check them against a chronology so you don't lose the timeline in dense correspondence.
  3. Select one set of back-and-forth letters and compare how each side phrases things at the same stage of negotiation, to train close reading of sources.
  4. Note unfamiliar institutional terms in the margin and revisit them after a section, so details don't interrupt your overall judgment.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? Is it hard to read? It is an electronic reprint of public-domain documents in the original English; the text consists of eighteenth-century diplomatic correspondence with long sentences and dense names and places, so the reading threshold is high. Readers with college-level English and a basic grasp of the American Revolution will find it easier; beginners can use a dictionary and a historical chronology.
With no modern annotations or introduction, how should I read it effectively? First fill in a chronology of American Revolutionary diplomacy on your own, then read by topic, such as alliance negotiations, envoy appointments or maritime affairs. Keep an index of people and events as you go and link multiple letters on the same issue; this captures the connections between documents better than reading page by page.
Do I need to read the first seven volumes before Volume 8? You don't need to read in volume order. Each volume is arranged by correspondence date and topic, and Volume 8 can be used independently. But to study the full course of a negotiation, you still need to go back to earlier volumes for prior correspondence; check the table of contents to see the period this volume covers, then decide whether to read related volumes.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.