The Politics of War:
Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia
Published by The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and The University of North Carolina Press, 2010: The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia, by Michael A. McDonnell.
Available now. Order here.
Reviews:
“...offers a blueprint for how historians should examine the attempts by various groups of Americans to acquire liberty and independence in the second half of the eighteenth century.”
“...explores in some depth the tension between the elite and allegedly “plebian” citizens during the Revolutionary War.”
“In his wonderful Politics of War, McDonnell uses the difficulties that Virginia faced in fielding an army during the War of Independence as a way to probe the internal conflict about the direction and meaning of the American Revolution. This sweeping book about the social, political, and military dimensions of war presents a complex tapestry of civil military clashes, shifting loyalties, slave and Indian uprisings, battlefield exploits, and legislative combat.”
“The great strength of the book lies in McDonnell’s crucial recognition that the problem of fighting the war for independence in Virginia cannot be understood without a steady awareness of the stresses imposed by socio-economic divisions among the people that were particularly shaped by the ownership of land and labour. … McDonnell should be congratulated for his aggressive insistence on the importance of the experience of the war in the transformations of independent Virginia, and his work should stimulate future work on the social context of the politics of war in revolutionary America.”
— Douglas Bradburn, Binghamton University, The Historical Journal, vol. 52, no. 3 (2009): 836-839
“The Politics of War is meticulously researched, in both primary and second- ary sources, with McDonnell's copious documentation presented in accessible footnotes, rather than buried in endnotes. His writing is straightforward and mercifully free of jargon. He has undoubtedly produced the most thorough account to date of Virginia's struggle to mobilize for war.”
— Jeff Broadwater, Barton College, Reviews in American History, vol. 36, no. 3 (2008): 321-328
“The anomalies and ironies of civil wars and wars of independence are clearly revealed in this deep and enlightening study of the Revolutionary War as played out on the killing fields of Virginia.”
“McDonnell's book offers the fullest account yet of the struggles among Virginians over the Revolution—and the most detailed discussion of state mobilization since Richard Buel's 1980 work on Connecticut (Dear Liberty). … His challenging argument should inspire a new understanding of the politics of the Revolutionary War.”
“What McDonnell has done, with elegance as well as assiduous research, is provide a powerful counterargument to traditional interpretations of Virginia in the revolutionary period that open up, in a way that no recent book has done, this crucial topic to further debate. Even Whig historians can be grateful that an old story can be told, as McDonnell tells it, in a new and fascinating way. It is an essential book for all students of the revolutionary experience.”
“Politics of War is an exciting example of military history as social history. … People in Virginia did challenge one another during the revolution — and, indeed, those challenges sometimes stemmed from the unequal distribution of wealth within society. Taxation, recruitment, land distribution, army discipline, shortages, legal restrictions and traditional expectations of obedience placed unequal or disproportionate burdens on poorer or enslaved Virginians, and the people of the past knew it. They could not always articulate their social grievances as well as McDonnell does for them. Yet it is impossible to deny, after reading this book, that those grievances were present - and that they shaped the Revolutionary War in Virginia.”
— Benjamin L. Carp, Tufts University, Social History, vol. 33, no. 4 (2008): 479-481
“Michael McDonnell’s book provides new insights into Virginia society and its response to wartime mobilization. For scholars of the American Revolution and graduate students, this work provides a wealth of information on Revolutionary Virginia and sets a high standard in historical research.”
“Michael McDonnell’s impressive book very powerfully sweeps away old myths and presents a powerful case of a Virginia riven by class and social divisions during the Revolutionary War and moving into the postwar era with a greater sense of trepidation than triumph. … McDonnell has produced a model of historical scholarship — a work deeply researched, clearly written, and effectively argued, that adds significantly to our picture of Virginia during the Revolution.”
“Reconstructing the history of mobilization, done with extraordinary skill here … His findings constitute the most substantial account in existence of the inner history of attempts in Virginia to mobilize labor for the war. … There is much that is fresh and valuable in this book.”
“It is hard to underestimate the impact of this impressive work on our understanding not just of late eighteenth-century Virginia, but also of the nature and experience of the long and bloody war from which the American republic emerged. … For historians who have long believed that Virginia furnished the model for an antebellum southern society in which class differences were minimized by a white republican unity founded on the institution of black slavery, McDonnell’s persuasive argument that class in fact trumped race during the war seems as revolutionary as Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.”
— Simon P. Newman, University of Glasgow, Journal of American Studies, vol. 42, no. 2 (2008): 373-374
“The Politics of War is a valuable addition to American Revolutionary War historiography and will appeal to devotees of the “War and Society” branch of military history. McDonnell joins a growing list of historians whose analyses of early American societies at war tell us much about class, race, and conceptions of liberty in the American Revolution.”
“The Politics of War is required reading for students of the American Revolution.”
— Robert G. Parkinson, College of William & Mary, The Historian, vol. 71, no. 1 (2009): 120-121
“Ordinary people, McDonnell demonstrates repeatedly and convincingly in The Politics of War, made a difference in the Virginia Revolution. … Our sense of what the Revolution was and was not is considerably better now than it was before McDonnell’s substantial achievement.”
— Steve Rosswurm, Lake Forest College, The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 65, no. 4 (2008): 827-829
“527 densely informative yet unfailingly entertaining and beautifully written pages of text. Moreover, the fact that McDonnell has raised important questions, that were previously unthinkable, illustrates the paradigm-shifting importance of his book. It is no exaggeration to say that historians thought there was peace and harmony in revolutionary Virginia. In fact, it is the one revolutionary place where historians knew — took for granted — that there was peace and harmony. McDonnell has shown beyond doubt, however, that there was strife and instability. The Politics of War is therefore a stunning piece of research and revisionism. The Revolution in Virginia and indeed across America will never look the same again.”
“McDonnell's work is one of the more important recent additions to American colonial and Revolutionary historiography. Class as a factor in colonial society is too often overlooked or deemed inconsequential to racial affiliations controlled by the elites. This is instead a history of those who defied control and resisted mobilization for a cause they may not have accepted as beneficial to their own social identities, and complicates a story historians are still striving to tell.”
“In this volume, Michael A. McDonnell succeeds more fully than earlier neoprogressive historians in displacing the prevailing consensus view that a stable, well-supported planter elite led Virginia through the revolutionary era with little change to the commonwealth's hierarchical social and political order.”
“McDonnell captures the texture and the ironies of the home front in what might best be called the first civil war. The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia is aptly titled: the focus here is less on reasons for victory and loss, or assigning blame, than on explaining the connections between the democratization of state and county politics, slave resistance, and the experience of the war. Historiographically, The Politics of War is a major step forward in our understanding of the effects of the Revolutionary War itself.”
“McDonnell presents his interpretation with a clear, perceptive, and well-researched narra- tive, providing an unusually detailed account of the war in Virginia. … The Politics of War is an important and impressive book that should be a part of any scholarly discussion of the Revolutionary War.”
— Bradford J. Wood, Eastern Kentucky University, Itinerario, vol. 31, no. 2 (2007): 200-202
Advance Praise:
“Here, in the great tradition of history from below, is a powerful new interpretation of the American Revolution in Virginia, its most important setting. By giving authoritative voice to small farmers, tenants, laborers, and servants in their struggles for independence, McDonnell has emerged as a major new voice in early American history.”
“This fine book examines the discontent and violence that tore at the fabric of Virginian society as it mobilized for war. These upheavals, rooted in class and racial tensions, transformed the political landscape of Virginia and the nation.”
“McDonnell unearths to telling view the disaffection and discontent of middling and poorer folk, including blacks. He crafts a fresh understanding of class and race in the making of the new American nation. . . . A must and delightful read for any serious student of the early Republic.”
“With painstaking research and keen insights, McDonnell reveals hidden dimensions of the American Revolution. He illuminates the lives of common Virginians and their struggles to shape a truly democratic republic.”
About the Book:
Winner, NSW Premier’s History Prize, 2008
Runner-up, British Association for American Studies Book Prize, 2007
Highly Commended, Australian Historical Association, W.K. Hancock Prize, 2008
Highly Commended, Australian Historical Association, Kay Daniels Prize, 2008
War often unites a society behind a common cause, but the notion of diverse populations all rallying together to fight on the same side disguises the complex social forces that come into play in the midst of perceived unity. Michael A. McDonnell uses the Revolution in Virginia to examine the political and social struggles of a revolutionary society at war with itself as much as with Great Britain.
McDonnell documents the numerous contests within Virginia over mobilizing for war--struggles between ordinary Virginians and patriot leaders, between the lower and middle classes, and between blacks and whites. From these conflicts emerged a republican polity rife with racial and class tensions.
Looking at the Revolution in Virginia from the bottom up, The Politics of War demonstrates how contests over waging war in turn shaped society and the emerging new political settlement. With its insights into the mobilization of popular support, the exposure of social rifts, and the inversion of power relations, McDonnell's analysis is relevant to any society at war.