American Revolution: Bernard Bailyn And Gary Nash

There are a plethora of theories as to what exactly caused the American Revolution. Although it isn’t possible to narrow such a monumental act down to a single cause, two historians – Bernard Bailyn and Gary Nash - have argued their interpretations of historical data and documents based on a few primary sources. While Bailyn argues that it was personal and political creeds, along with political power-struggles, that caused the revolution, Nash’s theory that it was a combination of social injustice and certain rattling events is much better supported by the primary sources. Gary Nash of the University of California Los Angeles has continually researched what exactly motivated the common people of the Colonies to rise against their tyrannous King George III. He believed that the common reasons of “the ‘predicament of poverty’ was unknown in colonial America…the conditions of everyday life among ‘the inarticulate’ had not changed in ways led to a revolutionary predisposition, and that ‘social discontent’ ‘economic disturbances’ and ‘social strains’ can generally …show more content…
Although there was a political struggle, why would the colonists find unity in such an act? How could their reactions to these dominative acts be the result of radical ideologies? The Colonists had a choice of whether or not to unite, and it was not necessarily political – it was personal. These people were fighting for their rights and liberties, for their families and friends rights as well, for a personal motivation of a better life in the distant future. It wasn’t a greedy power struggle or seedy radicals; they were people who were slowly being deprived of freedom after moving an ocean away to prevent such events. That’s not for politics or radicalism, that is for personal