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Having the national governments of Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Venezuela aligned with the USSR was hardly "controlling the world," which is what you said.
The Soviet threat was always overblown; the worst of it was for about 20 years post WWII. By the late 1960s the Soviets were failing - the Prague Spring was sign of that.
The true threat from communism or anything similar to it is wealth and income inequality. No one revolts in countries with a robust middle class. They revolted in countries that had a landlord-peasant social dynamic where the rich own everything and the average people have little to nothing.
Also, do not read or use only one source for your information. Different authors or historians write with personal perceptions.
For example, the Battle of Bosworth would have a different tilt if you read a history book from Elizabethan times than a recent history. Contemporaneous accounts, often considered more reliable than "after-the-fact" accounts are generally written from the victors view.
A history of the American Colonies by an American historian would not necessarily read the same if written by an English historian.
TBH - the US War of Independence is seen as a footnote in relation to the bigger global struggle between Britain and France, which encompassed the seven year war and Napoleonic Wars.
Some historians feel that these wars were in reality more global than WW1 and were in fact the real first world war.
As for events that led up to War, the British Parliament was divided over the issue of giving the US more representation and in terms of taxes, the US actually had far lower taxes than people residing in Britain, despite the US having a higher standard of living.
Americans at the in New England paid on average 1 shilling per year in taxes, compared to an average of 26 shillings a year back in Britain.
Parliament was openly divided between those who supported the Americans having greater representation and those against, and individuals such as Thomas Pownall and Adam Smith proposed a system of further representation.
The War of Independence could have been avoided if both sides had been a little bit more flexible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PBS
“No taxation without representation” — the rallying cry of the American Revolution — gives the impression that taxation was the principal irritant between Britain and its American colonies. But, in fact, taxes in the colonies were much lower than taxes in Britain. The central grievance of the colonists was their lack of a voice in the government that ruled them.
In drawing attention to the role of representation as a spark for revolution, they note that the average British citizen who resided in Britain paid 26 shillings per year in taxes compared to only 1 shilling per year in New England, even though the living standard of the colonists was arguably higher than that of the British.
There were proposals to settle the colonial crisis peacefully, most notably by Thomas Pownall and Adam Smith. Smith, for example, proposed “a system in which the political representation of Great Britain and America would be proportional to the contribution that each polity was making to the public treasury of the empire.”
Thank you for your question.
My problem is I forgot the US history, which I learned as a schoolboy. Sad.
I need a comprehensive textbook, starting in XVI century.
Then I would like to zoom into US Revolution, Founding Fathers, US constitution.
The text book for my high school history class from back in the 1970's - The Great Republic: A History of the American People, by Bernard Bailyn, David Brion Davis, David Herbert Donald, John L Thomas, and Gordon S Wood. I just now turned around in my desk chair and saw it on my bookshelf.
The American History teacher at my high school back then had a Master's Degree in History from Columbia University and never quite got around to finishing his thesis for his PhD. I believe that he personally picked this book as the starting textbook for the two classes that he taught. He supplemented the content of this book with several books authored by respected American historians, mostly from the "neo-whig" school of American History - Bernard Bailyn, Edmund Morgan, Gordon S Wood, Pauline Maier.
If you're looking for that one book, I highly recommend this one. Be certain that you get this actual book, and not the student guide
TBH - the US War of Independence is seen as a footnote in relation to the bigger global struggle between Britain and France, which encompassed the seven year war and Napoleonic Wars.
I absolutely agree with this. But it is not a focus of what in US grade schools, and probably not even in basic university courses, it requires more and independent effort to come to that understanding. I am not sure if the OP, as a beginner, would be ready for that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
Some historians feel that these wars were in reality more global than WW1 and were in fact the real first world war.
There were wars with global impact WAY, WAY, WAY before the European period of history.
The news over the past 160 years or so has been wars using industrial technology.
In my view, the First Industrial War was what is commonly known as the US Civil War, clearing the way for a wage-based, continent-wide industrial economy.
In my view, WWI was the Second Industrial War and mainly European in scope, similar to the US Civil War, with more destructive technology.
I absolutely agree with this. But it is not a focus of what in US grade schools, and probably not even in basic university courses, it requires more and independent effort to come to that understanding. I am not sure if the OP, as a beginner, would be ready for that.
There were wars with global impact WAY, WAY, WAY before the European period of history.
The news over the past 160 years or so has been wars using industrial technology.
In my view, the First Industrial War was what is commonly known as the US Civil War, clearing the way for a wage-based, continent-wide industrial economy.
In my view, WWI was the Second Industrial War and mainly European in scope, similar to the US Civil War, with more destructive technology.
And so on.
It's okay if others view it differently.
All the best!
In terms of the Seven Year War being the First World War, until that time there were not many wars fought on such a scale and over numerous continents.
The First World War itself was largely trench warfare in Central Europe and was not s global as the Seven Year War and subsequent Napoleonic Wars.
I absolutely agree with this. But it is not a focus of what in US grade schools, and probably not even in basic university courses, it requires more and independent effort to come to that understanding. I am not sure if the OP, as a beginner, would be ready for that.
There were wars with global impact WAY, WAY, WAY before the European period of history.
The news over the past 160 years or so has been wars using industrial technology.
In my view, the First Industrial War was what is commonly known as the US Civil War, clearing the way for a wage-based, continent-wide industrial economy.
In my view, WWI was the Second Industrial War and mainly European in scope, similar to the US Civil War, with more destructive technology.
And so on.
It's okay if others view it differently.
All the best!
In terms of the Seven Year War being the First World War, until that time there were not many wars fought on such a scale, over numerous continents and which had such major global repercussions.
The First World War (known as the Great War until WW2) by comparison, was largely trench warfare in Central Europe and was not s global as the Seven Year War and subsequent Napoleonic Wars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiki
The Seven Years' War was perhaps the first global war, taking place almost 160 years before World War I, known as the Great War before the outbreak of World War II, and globally influenced many later major events. Winston Churchill described the conflict as the "first world war".
The war restructured not only the European political order, but also affected events all around the world, paving the way for the beginning of later British world supremacy in the 19th century, the rise of Prussia in Germany (eventually replacing Austria as the leading German state), the beginning of tensions in British North America, as well as a clear sign of France's revolutionary turmoil. It was characterized in Europe by sieges and the arson of towns as well as open battles with heavy losses
In terms of the Seven Year War being the First World War, until that time there were not many wars fought on such a scale and over numerous continents.
Maybe not. Certainly not in the sense of how 16th-20th century Europeans conceived of war.
But there are many instances in antiquity, for example, when wars in central and even far east Asia had knock-on effects in India and all the way to the Mediterranean and even eastern Atlantic coast.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave New World
The First World War itself was largely trench warfare in Central Europe (known as the Great War until WW2) and was not as global as the Seven Year War and subsequent Napoleonic Wars.
I agree on both accounts, that so-called WWI was mainly a big deal in Central Europe - with the fall of the Russian, Hapsburg/Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, i.e. the Second Industrial War -, and that the Seven Years War and Napoleonic Wars are way under appreciated for their impact on global developments both immediately and well into 19th century and even beyond, including the shaping of US and South American history.
The USSR was never powerful enough for that. Not even close.
All we have to do is look at the interventions the USSR tried where the U.S. had less involvement. Angola and Guinea-Bissau come to mind as examples. Afghanistan would be the most famous example of the USSR's very own precious quagmire they did not want to let go of.
When heir adventurism almost caused their economic collapse, that blessed anti-Communist Richard Milhous Nixon subsidized them not through direct aid but through below-market grain sales. The grain never touched the Soviet Union; it was made up on arbitrage by resale at escalating free-market prices. The U.S. gave them power when they needed it; until a few years into Reagan.
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