While reading up on Hamilton, the Broadway play, I found a quote by Shane White criticizing it:
"Attempting to get away from the Great Men story of the founding fathers, these scholars have incorporated ordinary people, African-Americans, Native Americans and women and placed the whole half-century in the broader contexts of the Atlantic World. In this more inclusive and nuanced telling of the republic's creation, Hamilton plays a cameo rather than leading role."
Can someone point me to a source on this new understanding of the am American Revolution? Is there a book based on this new interpretation?
What he seems to be saying is that Hamilton breaks with the very old idea of the only important history being made by important males ( usually white) . So, in this old way of thinking, if you study the lives of the Founding Fathers ( Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton...) you study the Revolution. This is a pretty outdated concept: though popular histories often tend to still focus on it.
"Inclusive" can simply mean, what about the history of everyone else who was not a Founding Father but still there at the time? Women, blacks, Native Americans? And "Nuanced" can be, what about the people who were not on the winning team? Who didn't come out well in the end, made deals with the British, etc.
There is a pretty good collection of articles on these in War & Society in the American Revolution: Mobilization and Home Fronts, ( 2007) edited by John Resch and Walter Sargent. It covers the North Carolina militias in the brutal backcountry terrorizing Loyalists: women and camp followers in the Continental Army: the Virginia aristocracy's general avoidance of Continental Army service: the Oneida Indians aiding the Continental Army but losing their lands anyway...lots of things that don't fit well into the idea of the Revolution being a glorious , unifying march to freedom lead by white male heroes.