ASH3002y Reading Assignment
March 8, 1999

Whose Revolution Anyway? The Rhetoric of Revolution

From Baym, American Literature, Volume I:

• J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, "Letter III:  What Is an American" (1782), pp.641-659
• Thomas Paine, From Common Sense [1776]and The Crisis, No. 1 (1777), pp. 691-705.
• Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence (1776) in The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, pp. 714-719.

Pay close attention to the rhetoric with which Americanness and revolution are described.  Do these authors treat these issues and terms in similar ways?  Or do they take very different approaches?  If you note differences in their rhetoric, how might you explain those differences?

Electronic, Web-Based Resources

• For searchable electronic versions of some of the principal revolutionary and constitutional documents, including The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States and The Federalist Papers:
  • The Yale Law School Avalon Project -- http://elsinore.cis.yale.edu/lawweb/lawschool/webtfp.htm
  • Emory Law School Page -- http://www.law.emory.edu/Federal
  • Oklahoma Law School Page -- http://www.law.uoknor.edu/hist/
  • Docments from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention in American Memory -- http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/bdsds/bdsdhome.html
• For an excellent bibliography of published accounts and interpretations of the Revolutionary Era, 1760-1790:  Mighigan State,PBS and OIEAHC --http://revolution.h-net.msu.edu/
• For some maps of the Revolutionary Era, see the University of Georgia's Hargrett Collection:
  http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/maps/revamer.html