The Glorious Cause

The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff is a nonfiction summation of the American Revolution, starting at its origins in 1763 and continuing to the election of George Washington as the first president in 1789. Published in 1982 with a second edition in 2005, The Glorious Cause is one of the early entries in the Oxford History of the United States, an ongoing series of narrative history books chronicling the history of the United States published by Oxford University Press. The book was nominated for the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for History.

Rather than focus solely on the years of the American Revolutionary War, Middlekauff asserts that the revolution really started in the 1760s. The book begins with the end of the French and Indian War, of which Britain and her allies were victorious. Great Britain comes out of the war the undisputed master of North America and an incredible naval power. However, the war came at a great cost, and the Empire levels a series of taxes and policies on its subjects in the American colonies to help pay for the expenses. The first of these is the Stamp Act of 1766, which forces those living in the British American colonies to buy their printed material from manufacturers in Britain.

The Stamp Act and others like it illuminate a major disagreement between American colonists and their mother country about the unwritten constitution of the British Empire. Americans widely hold that, as British citizens, they cannot be taxed or governed without their consent. Britain, however, believes that parliament governs all inhabitants of the Empire, whether their community is represented in the House of Commons or not. With His Majesty’s approval, parliament continues to devise taxes to raise revenue.



Resistance in America is swift. If their paper is taxed, Americans fear, what else will parliament tax? The American Revolution starts not as a separatist movement, but as an examination of American colonists’ rights as British citizens and how that is defined differently between them and the British crown. Parliament continues to levy taxes on colonists over the next several years. The Tea Act of 1773 invokes a particularly passionate response from colonists, leading to the infamous Boston Tea Party. American civil and economic rights continue to be abused by the British, and the Revolution turns closer, but not entirely, toward the idea of a new country.

Because parliament refuses to offer representation in the House of Commons, the thirteen American colonies establish the Continental Congress to negotiate with the British parliament to avoid bloodshed. In Lexington and Concord, however, the bloodshed has already begun. Massachusetts is in open rebellion against the crown by 1775. The Continental Congress agrees to raise an army. When they meet the second time in 1776, they declare independence from Great Britain.

The book covers the American Revolutionary War’s eight years extensively, from the maneuvering in the north to avoid total defeat early in the war, to the heroic victories in the south later on such as at Hannah’s Cowpens. With Cornwallis’s defeat at the Battle of Yorktown, American independence is secure.



After the war, independence won, the United States must choose how to govern itself and maintain a level of sovereignty for states. The Articles of Confederation hold the states together too loosely. The book’s conclusion covers the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the struggle to get it ratified by all the states, and the eventual establishment of the Republic with George Washington as the first President of the United States.

The Glorious Cause offers a wider survey of the period surrounding the American Revolution. Because the book does not focus on any single person, Middlekauff is at liberty to take a broad view of a situation to avoid bias, narrow on a particular person’s account for pertinent information, and then return to the wider perspective. This strategy provides a more holistic view of the Revolution, rather than just that of Washington, Hamilton, or any other well-known personalities of the time. Still, everyone from King George III to farmers in Massachusetts has the spotlight at some point or another, as well as the usual cast of characters during the American Revolution. In the second edition, Middlekauff revised and added more information about war medicine, women in the Revolution, American Indians, strategic differences between the Americans and the British, and more.

Middlekauff maintains a common theme: why did people fight the American Revolution? For example, while he describes a battle from a historic, factual perspective, he zeroes in on accounts of those fighting to hear their rationalization. How did soldiers feel about these events? African slaves? Women? Readers hear from them all. Through their testimonies, readers have a sense of how the Revolution, though it changed in substance over the years, maintained such widespread participation and the commitment to eventually form the United States of America.