Quotes by Joseph J. Ellis, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence

“One-year enlistment had proven problematic since the troops were scheduled to rotate out of the army just when they had begun to internalize the discipline of military service and became reliable s...”

“Ordinary British soldiers harbored several strange preconceptions of their own. Some were surprised that the colonists wore clothes, thinking they would dress like Indians. Other had expected to en...”

“Clinton had displayed his lifelong tendency to make enemies of all his superiors, who never seemed to appreciate his advice as much as he thought it deserved.”

“If you knew how the journey was going to end, you could afford to be patient along the path.”

“They were trying to orchestrate a revolution, which almost by definition generated a sense of collective trauma that defied any semblance of coherence and control. If we wish to rediscover the psyc...”

“If he (John Adams) could not control events, he could at least record them for posterity perhaps the ultimate form of control.”

“His (Washington's) apparent paralysis was the result of balancing two imperatives: his reputation against the survival of the Continental Army.”

“It was no accident that the beau ideal of his (John Adams') political philosophy was balance, since he projected onto the world the conflicting passions he felt inside himself and regarded governme...”

“The strategic center of the rebellion was not a place not New York, Philadelphia, not the Hudson corridor but the Continental Army itself.”

“Washington not only fit the bill physically, he was also almost perfect psychologically, so comfortable with his superiority that he felt no need to explain himself. (As a young man during the Fren...”

“The strategic center of the rebellion was not a place – not New York, Philadelphia, not the Hudson corridor – but the Continental Army itself.”