A Respectable Army

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When the first edition of this highly successful volume appeared in 1982, the proponents of the “new” military history were just gaining full momentum. Their objective was to reach beyond the traditional focus of military studies—the flow of guns, combat, and tactics that influenced the immediate outcome of battles and martial conflicts, often with little reference to broader historical contexts.

Believing that one cannot fully appreciate the Revolution without reckoning with the War for Independence and its effects in helping to shape the new American republic, Martin and Lender move beyond the deeply ingrained national mythology about the essence of the war effort, so neatly personified by the imagery of the embattled freehold farmer as the quintessential warrior of the Revolution. Then they integrate, not persist in keeping separate, the fascinating history of the real Continental army into the mainstream of writing about the nation-making experience of the United States.

A fully revised and updated third edition of the most established and innovative historical analysis of the Continental Army and its role in the formation of the new republic.

• Written by two experts in the field of early U.S. history
• Includes fully updated coverage of the military, political, social, and cultural history of the Revolution
• Features maps, illustrations, a Note on Revolutionary War History and Historiography, and a fully revamped Bibliographical Essay
• Fully established as an essential resource for courses ranging from A.P. U.S. history to graduate seminars on the American Revolution