Andrews, John:

$4,250 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH AMERICA, FRANCE, SPAIN, AND HOLLAND; COMMENCING IN 1775 AND ENDING IN 1783. One of the basic contemporary histories of the American Revolution, this detailed narrative was compiled largely from newspaper articles and the proceedings of the House of Commons. It is illustrated with portraits of principals such as Washington, Clinton, Greene, Cornwallis, Burgoyne, Lafayette, Captain Asgill, and Count D'Estaing. The maps show the North American colonies as far west as the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, the English Channel, the West Indies, and other hot spots of the time in Europe and elsewhere."Andrews certainly lifted much of his most famous work, a four-volume history of the American War of Independence, from the Annual Register. But he was essentially a moralist, not a historian in the strict sense of the word. His interest in society, past or present, was didactic; his desire was to teach object lessons. Although he believed that historians should try for 'impartiality', he also believed that 'nothing, perhaps, is more difficult to attain than the reputation of being strictly impartial: we all have a particular bias, as well as a ruling passion; and it is equally impossible to divest ourselves of either'....With preferences that were essentially those of a moderate opposition whig, he criticized post-1763 policies that had precipitated the American war. 'Under the pretext of providing for the safety and defense of its colonies', he chided, the

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