The Eve of the Revolution: A Chronicle of the Breach with England

Becker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus), 1873-1945Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.2

Word count: 342K words
Chapters: 35

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 Eve of the Revolution; A Chronicle of the Breach with England by Carl L. BeckerAuthor: Becker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus), 1873-1945,Language: English, Class: E201: History: America: Revolution (1775-1783), Release Date: Feb 1, 2002

Editor's review

Carl L. Becker was an influential early twentieth-century American historian. This book focuses on the tense years before the outbreak of the War of Independence, tracing the process by which the North American colonies and Britain moved from disagreement and confrontation to outright rupture. It is not content to list events but strives to show how both sides moved step by step to the point of no return over taxation, representation, and sovereignty, helping readers understand that the "breach" was not the work of a single day. Becker is known for fluent narrative and attention to the tensions of ideas and institutions; the book is short but tightly plotted, suitable as an introduction to the history of the American Revolution and as supplementary material for classroom teaching. The same caution applies: it was written long ago, and some interpretive frameworks bear the mark of their era; readers should read with a questioning mind and set it beside newer scholarship on the Revolution to see its strengths and weaknesses. The free Project Gutenberg e-edition makes it easy to consult and search at any time.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Beginning readers who want to understand the causes of the American War of Independence and need a clear narrative thread
Students taking courses in American history or English-speaking country studies who need supplementary reading
General readers interested in the political ideas and institutional debates of the American Revolutionary era
Readers who prefer short, section-by-section public-domain history e-books

Not a good fit for

War history enthusiasts who need detailed campaign narratives and military specifics
Professional readers expecting the latest social history and bottom-up perspectives
Readers who want a contemporary scholar's synthesis on the origins of the Revolution

Reading tips

Before reading, review the background of the British Empire after 1763 and enter each chapter with the question "why the breach?"
Trace each chapter's events in a rhythm of "policy—response—escalation" and make a simple table to see the causal chain.
Keep questioning the author's judgments, and after finishing find a contemporary survey of Revolutionary history to compare similarities and differences.
You may read the concluding chapter first and then return to the main text, testing the author's argument against its own reasoning.

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.

FAQ

Does this book cover the period after the War of Independence began?

The title already marks its scope as "the eve of the Revolution"; its focus is the deterioration of relations between the colonies and Britain before the war, not the course of battles. To understand the military and political developments after the outbreak of war, you need to continue with a history of the war.

Can I read it without any background in American history?

Yes, but it is advisable to spend a little time first learning the general situation of the thirteen British colonies in North America and the structure of the eighteenth-century British Empire. The narrative is clear, but it assumes some familiarity with basic figures and events; a little background will make it much smoother.

What kind of historian was Becker?

He was an important American historian in the first half of the twentieth century, known for his work on the American Revolution and political thought, with a style attentive to the analysis of ideas and institutions. This book shows his narrative skill, but it was written early; readers should understand his scholarly place in light of later research.

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About the author

Becker, Carl L. (Carl Lotus), 1873-1945 Author · American · 1873–1945

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) was an American historian who taught for many years at Cornell University. Two of his works are included here: The Eve of the Revolution: A Chronicle of the Breach with England and Beginnings of the American People. He also wrote The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers. Public information about the details of his life is limited; judging from the works available and from common assessments, he focused on the evolution of political ideas around American independence and on the formation of early American society, combining intellectual history with historical context. His writing is clear and reflective, attending not only to events but to how ideas are shaped by their times, and it has influenced both scholarly and general readers. This brief account relies only on verifiable information and makes no claims about unpublished biography.