Episode Details

Joseph Ellis, author of The Cause: The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773–1783, Part One: Ellis discusses "the cause," a unifying verbal canopy for diverse colonial interests opposing British policy. He details George III's monarchical control through parliament bribery and Benjamin Franklin's rejected early proposals for a British Commonwealth. The narrative highlights the "myth of the militia" born after Bunker Hill, Thomas Paine's plainspoken Common Sense, and George Washington's "standing miracle" retreat from Long Island. Finally, Ellis describes how Valley Forge forged a nationalistic elite, while the actual fighting was borne by an integrated, lower-class Continental Army. (1)