Saber and Scroll
Volume 1
Issue 1 Spring 2012 (Edited and Revised April 2015)
Article 12
March 2012
Book Review: Independence: The Struggle to set
America Free. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011.
Jim Dick
American Public University System
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Recommended Citation
Dick, Jim (2012) "Book Review: Independence: The Struggle to set America Free. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011.," Saber and
Scroll: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 12.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.apus.edu/saberandscroll/vol1/iss1/12
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Dick: Independence: The Struggle to set America Free
John Ferling. Independence: The Struggle to set America Free. New York:
Bloomsbury Press, 2011.
Jim Dick
There have been many books published dealing with the causes and
events that led to why the American colonies declared their independence from
Great Britain. Many people often think it was inevitable that America declared its
independence when in truth it was anything but that. There is ample evidence that a
large group of people throughout the colonies and even in the Second Continental
Congress that were in favor of reconciliation with Great Britain even as late as
May 1776. The battles within Independence Hall between those that favored
reconciliation and independence are not so well known, and that story is just as
important to the early years of the Revolutionary era as those of Lexington and
Concord, Bunker Hill, and the siege of Boston.
John Ferling tells the story of how the interests of the colonies and their
delegates to Congress changed from reconciliation to independence. He also
illustrates the anxiety the issue of independence caused for the Americans before
they made the fateful leap of faith from being colonies of the British Empire to
states of a new nation. Ferling, a professor emeritus of history at the University of
West Georgia uses his extensive knowledge of the Revolutionary period to great
effect in Independence. His use of biographical vignettes explaining the delegate’s
view on the issues at hand is a masterful stroke, which keeps the reader engrossed
in the narrative. When coupled with the small details, he shows the delegates as
men who reached their final decision over months of deliberation, not as a kneejerk
reaction.
Ferling describes the struggle of those who favored independence versus
those favoring reconciliation as an ongoing debate that was heavily dependent
upon events outside Philadelphia. Independence reveals that the decisions were
anything but inevitable until both the common people and their representatives
reached the same conclusion regarding their futures. By placing the struggle as that
between men and their ideas and interests, he removes it from a series of events to
that of how the personal interaction of the delegates was just as important to the
process. The end result is a book that adds to our understanding of how those men
came to the decisions they reached when they cast the fateful vote on July 2, 1776.
Published by DigitalCommons@APUS, 2012
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