COLUMNS

Listening to the Echoes of the American Revolution

Jul 4, 2016 | 10:08 GMT

American Revolution USA strategy empire
The British defeat at the hands of George Washington and the Continental Army in the American Revolution was as much a result of geopolitical forces as the Americans' guerrilla war.

(Three Lions/Getty Images)

Stratfor covers the globe from its headquarters in Austin, Texas. As a result, many of the company's staff celebrate the Independence Day holiday on July 4. Today we are sharing this column by Stratfor Senior VP of Strategic Analysis Rodger Baker, taking a different perspective on the American Revolutionary War. Piers Mackesy's 1964 history of the American Revolution traces the war from a British perspective, one that seeks to understand not the questions of battlefield technique or specific battles, or even the politics of independence, but rather the broader context of a nearly seven-year conflict with a distant colony amid a global competition for economic and strategic security. Mackesy helps us see not a story of a scrappy band of rebels cleverly hiding behind trees and using backwoods marksmanship to defeat an outdated rank-and-file military organization, an image still pervasive in Americana today. Instead, we see a cautionary tale of...

Subscribe to view this article

Subscribe Now

Subscribe

Already have an account?