Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff

Just finished Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff published 1982.  It's the first book in The Oxford History of the United States and it covers American History from 1763 - 1789. It's about 800 pages and the American Revolution must have taken up 500 pages or it certainly felt like that.  The author wanting to be accurate and miss nothing let's us know about every aspect of the war in minute detail.  The end result is that I retained very little except that George Washington was a great general but I knew that going in.  It took me on and off about a year to finish this book and I can't even be sure I read every part of it because I read it in an audio version and at certain points I dozed off while the book kept rolling on.  

I don't fault the author (well, maybe a little) but he did do a tremendous job of research and the book is well written.  It's just that sometimes less is more.  If you go into too much detail regarding a historical period the reader is not going to remember the important events you want to stress.  It will all be a blur.  As to why I have embarked on this American history project it's partly because I don't know that much about American history.  Whatever I may have learned in school I have forgotten and I have come to realize a large part of our country's history I was never taught at all. 

One thing I did get from Glorious Cause is that from America's founding there has been a distrust by the states for the federal government.  The constitution was ratified in 1788 but it almost didn't happen because states wanted their independence and feared a federal government that would be too strong.  You definitely see that playing out today as well.  As for me, I am with Hamilton and Madison.  States going off on their own has not worked out well in our history.