EconAir

  This was an existential war for the rebellious Americans. If they lost, leaders would be hung, Tories (loyalists) would retaliate, English rule would be harsh and revengeful. On the other hand, England could sail away and still remain a global power. England had to win, which meant destroying the American  Continental Army, disarming the militias, and establish strong political control. But the Americans did not have to win battles to win the war. They just had to continue to exist - keeping the Continental Army together  - until the British decided that the war could not be won and had become too expensive.  Opposition to the war in England was substantial and rose rapidly after 1780. King George’s cabinet was forced to resign and Parliament passed a bill to limit George’s unilateral power to fight wars (sound familiar?). Power returned to Parliament; this was the last time an English king or queen exerted any power. England had an average of over 30,000 troops bu...

  The Causes of the American Revolution How the Colonials Won Creating a New Nation   Prologue:  America on the Brink of Revolution America in 1775 was a very different English colony than in 1700. In 1700, America was a poor "country" compared to England. By 1775, America's total output was about 40% of England's. About one-third of England's total trade (imports plus exports) was with the American colonies. America's total output and population were growing faster than England's. Besides providing raw material imports that England taxed and exported to other countries, primarily tobacco, America was becoming an important market for English manufactured goods. America also provided ships, shipbuilding, and sailors augmented the British merchant marine in times of peace  and the English navy in times of war. About one-fourth of England's merchant marine was American. But England had to be careful. Again,  America  was a very different colony in 1775 th...

Thucydides A friend of mine recently said that the most “useless” course he took in college was history. Let’s start with Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War . This was a war that took place over 2,400 years ago. What possible relevance could it have for Americans? In this war, Athens and Sparta, the two “superpowers” of Greece, were locked into a long war for the dominance of Greece. Athens, a democracy, had grown wealthy and powerful after the wars with the Persians. They had established an empire in the Aegean Sea, using taxes on Greek cities and islands to glorify Athens, including the Parthenon. Greek mainland city-states, led by Sparta, were jealous and fearful of Athenian power. Like World War I, the war in Greece began with a local dispute far from the major powers, in this case Athens and Sparta.  The climax to the story in Thucydides was that Athens decided to send its formidable fleet and much of its army to attack Syracuse, an ally of Sparta, far...