The Schlager Anthology of the American Revolution: A Student’s Guide to Essential Primary Sources

In this valuable new reference work, Chandler (history, Univ. College London; War, Patriotism and Identity in Revolutionary North America) has compiled 85 key primary sources in the history of the American Revolution: cartoons, images, and artwork; essays, reports, manifestos; legal and legislative documents; letters; poems, plays, fiction; and speeches and addresses. A diverse, broad array of figures and perspectives (for instance, revolutionaries and Loyalists alike) are represented here; documents include George Washington’s address to the Continental Congress; a letter from Phillis Wheatley discussing the hypocrisy of slavery; a letter from Cato, a formerly enslaved Pennsylvanian who calls on his state’s legislature to maintain a law abolishing slavery; and a document in which several chiefs of the Chickasaw Nation try to open up lines of diplomatic communication with the U.S. government. Each document—deftly abridged to about 800 words—is introduced by Chandler or one of the book’s nine academic contributors and includes an illustration (a page from the document, a portrait of the document’s author, etc.); an info box (detailing the document’s author, date, type, and significance); a brief glossary of terms, concepts, or even spellings that might be unfamiliar; and several short-answer questions that could also be used as springboards to student essays.