The American Revolution

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that T.H. Breen, in his "Marketplace of Revolution", argues that participation in American consumer life helped colonists to demand an increase in liberty from their colonial ruler, provided them with a means for communicating their grievances and through their shared consumer experience gave them a means for creating a common sense of national identity from which to wage a successful resistance against England. The author points out that, the most glaring flaw in Breen's analysis is his failure to address the primary competing theory of the American consumerism, that the consumerism described by Breen reached only the upper and upper-middle classes of colonial America and not had very limited impacted on the massive lower classes of colonial America. The paper contends that debt, as the unintended consequence of such consumerism, offers up a motivating force for a greater number of Americans especially under the extensive system of debt and credit of British colonial rule.

From the Paper:

"Bushman's argument counters Breen's plea for an America unified through consumerism enough to place substantial doubt in his entire thesis. Providing little defense against Bushman's general argument about consumerism and gentility in pre-revolutionary America, a conscientious reader of "Marketplace of Revolution" would have difficulty accepting Breen's justification for the ability of this seemingly disparate and sectionalist group of colonies to coordinate a massive movement for its independence. But the core of his argument remains compelling and provocative, that this rapid and massive expansion of the markets of colonial America had a profound and palpable impact on the American people and aided the development of a successful resistance movement against their colonial oppressors. Consumerism was certainly at the roots of this source of national unity and community, one of its consequences might be more deserving of credit."

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