Upon its initial publication, Ray Raphael’s magisterial was hailed by NPR’s as “relentlessly aggressive and unsentimental.” With impeccable skill, Raphael presented a wide array of fascinating scholarship within a single volume, employing a bottom-up approach that has served as a revelation. draws upon diaries, personal letters, and other Revolutionary-era treasures, weaving a thrilling “you are there” narrative—“a tapestry that uses individual experiences to illustrate the larger stories”. Raphael shifts the focus away from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to the slaves they owned, the Indians they displaced, and the men and boys who did the fighting ( ). This “remarkable perspective on a familiar part of American history” helps us appreciate more fully the incredible diversity of the American Revolution ( “Through letters, diaries, and other accounts, Raphael shows these individuals—white women and men of the farming and laboring classes, free and enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, loyalists, and religious pacifists—acting for or against the Revolution and enduring a war that compounded the difficulties of everyday life.” — “A tour de force . . . Ray Raphael has probably altered the way in which future historians will see events.” —