I'm currently reading a highly recommended history of the American Revolution. It's a fairly big book with nearly 800 pages, and I'm about a third through. I'm not going to write much about the book itself, because I plan to write a more detailed review when I finish. I like history and read a lot of history books. This is the first time I'm attempting a serious book on American History. I have previously read a lot of Indian and South Asian history, some European history and one critically acclaimed popular history of China. Most of the Indian and European history that I have read can be classified as popular historical books rather than academic works. What makes this history of the American Revolution stand out to me is how well the events of those times were documented in diplomatic dispatches, official government reports, military records, personal journals and diaries, and most surprisingly, in local newspapers. I have not come across such a wide selection of contemporary sources in any of the histories I have read. I suppose it's a direct reflection of the unique religious history that resulted in the flood of immigration into the New World, also the ethnic and cultural backgrounds of the settlers in the colonies and their rulers. The fairly high level of literacy and a fiercely independent pioneering spirit of the colonial population comes through clearly in this account. It is an engrossing, but slow read because of the amount of details. There are so many names, events, and of course, opinions. Many of the tactics that were employed in the public debate and media landscape two and a half centuries ago seem so familiar to anyone following politics today. I wish we had such well documented histories for our part of the world.
