Alan Taylor's American Revolutions considers the patriots’ struggle for independence as a bloody civil war by reluctant nationalists who were only able to gradually establish an American identity. The book divides patriots into rebels and loyalists, neutrals, and enthusiastic ideologues engaged in a messy war out of which calls for stronger government develop as a consequence rather than a driving vision. Above all – and unsurprisingly given the expansive geographic scale of Taylor's previous and already classic colonial American history survey – the Revolution was a continental process, dependent as much on individuals and events in the West and related insurgencies abroad, not least the Haitian Revolution, as on the traditional focus on imperial and merchant elites mostly in eastern urban crucibles and seaport cities.

We begin with a survey of the establishment of European empires in the Americas – Spanish, French, Dutch and English – and the proliferation of the last of these due largely to the unregulated settlement and expansion of British American colonies. Populous settlements provided a foundation for slave production and trade in foodstuffs and, by the eighteenth century, consumption of British exports. The colonists benefited from a “ramshackle structure of diverse constitutional arrangements” (21) that allowed them to imagine themselves the political and cultural peers of other freeborn Englishmen. In reality, they were dependent on English defense of the contested continent and subjected to four major conflicts from 1690 to 1763 in which Native Americans more often than not held the balance of power. Nowhere was this clearer than in the collapse of the French empire in North America after the French and Indian War 1753–63 which set the stage for the Revolution.

The next three chapters – on land, slaves, and rebels – consider events that divided the colonies from the empire. As a burgeoning colonial population fueled expansion westward, the British feared for loss of labour and ultimately the control of their empire. American imperialists, such as Benjamin Franklin, dreamt of a glorious future of federated and shared prosperity. Native Americans steered an increasingly difficult course between competing Europeans. Those who tired of broken European promises turned to inspirational leaders who urged them to revitalize their traditional ways and rebuff the greedy intruders. In the summer of 1763 a scattered rising by diverse Native forces ravaged colonial frontiers promoting vengeful atrocities, in particular at Paxton, Pennsylvania, and growing racial animus aimed at Natives and whoever spoke for them. A Proclamation Act restricting colonial movement to the west guaranteed conflict between speculators, ordinary settlers, and distant imperial overseers. This was the dynamo for the emerging conflict.

In this volatile situation, the imperial authorities decided to introduce what they considered necessary reforms to raise revenues to cover the costs of colonial defense. Here we enter the traditional narrative from legislative reforms through resistance expressed in elite rhetoric of republicanism and street protests in the context of worsening economic fortunes. The British, intent on moving from a land to a maritime conception of empire, feel sure they can rely on colonial divisions to scupper resistance. This was not unreasonable, given differences between regions and widespread loyalism. The rebels push a disastrous invasion of Canada, but manage to defend Boston and secure some early victories. The patriots are poorly prepared: Washington is unimpressed by forces available; the South fears loss of imperial protection from slave revolt, especially following Dunmore's appeal. Throughout the emphasis is on contingency and constant possibility of patriot collapse.

The next three chapters – on allies, loyalties, and wests – emphasize the importance of European states’ contest over America, the difficult and often misunderstood position of loyalists, and the decisive factor of expansion and conflicts in the West for events in the East. To win independence the patriots had to cultivate interdependence with European allies: they needed weapons and hard currency from European bankers, but many patriots despised the absolutist regimes and Catholic faith of their allies who had designs of their own on American lands. The French and Spanish were wary of assisting American republicans and encouraging their own colonial and domestic critics, but could not resist the temptation to weaken England. Thus emerged an alliance of convenience that provided crucial French naval support; this was badly needed when patriot recruitment and supplies to forces ran short, prompting mutinous mutterings. Lacking gold and silver, Congress and the states financed the war by printing millions of paper dollars which rapidly depreciated. After 1778 the war moved south and the northern public grew weary of the financial and bloody burdens. By 1781 Congress lacked the funds to even publish its own proceedings and had lost all credibility. In the West, Natives rightfully feared Americans as land grabbers and so tended to support the British. These Native forces were highly effective, intensifying white hatred and turning the frontier into a scene of bloody racial violence and widespread crisis.

The next three chapters – on oceans, shocks, and republics – track the story from the end of the war through the settling of new governments, beginning with new state constitutions of the late 1770s and finishing with the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The war was lost by Britain, rather than won by the Americans. Ultimately, the British were more concerned to secure their valuable West Indian colonies from European competitors, and to pursue new opportunities in India, than to retain troublesome and less profitable northern lands. At war's end, European diplomats agreed that the Americans’ territorial ambitions in the West were a “foolishness not meriting serious refutation.” However, the competition for American loyalty and trade prompted Britain to agree favorable terms, ceding large areas to the Americans. The losers were the French and the Natives who, disregarded by European diplomats, fought on – often with British support. What was this new power on the continent of North America? Was it a union of semi-autonomous republics to be dealt with individually, or a unified nation with sovereign claims others were bound to respect? This was the challenge the Americans faced in 1781–87 and which was compromised rather than settled at the the Constitutional Convention. In this retelling of the familiar story, the republic had radical elements, evident in the Pennsylvanian constitution, but was mostly a conservative settlement agreed between men of large and small property and shared assumptions regarding racial and gendered hierarchies.

In his final two chapters – on partisans and legacies – Taylor considers the narrative of the Federalist administration up to the election of 1800: its fondness for British examples, especially in banking and public finance; its settlement of the wars in the West, culminating with the 1795 Treaty of Greenville, and the rise of political parties and differences over the French and their revolution. The closing chapter considers the extent to which, often in spite of itself, the Revolution posed radical questions for long-standing assumptions regarding social hierarchies, freedom of conscience, the status and rights of women, and the contradiction of slavery in a free republic. Not much that is new for specialists, but a gripping and wonderfully well-told tale which will rightfully dominate undergraduate reading lists and the eager student of the American Revolution for the foreseeable future.