{"product_id":"shayss-rebellion-the-american-revolutions-final-battle-9780812218701","title":"Shays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle","description":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the bitter winter of 1786-87, Daniel Shays, a modest farmer and Revolutionary War veteran, and his compatriot Luke Day led an unsuccessful armed rebellion against the state of Massachusetts. Their desperate struggle was fueled by the injustice of a regressive tax system and a conservative state government that seemed no better than British colonial rule. But despite the immediate failure of this local call-to-arms in the Massachusetts countryside, the event fundamentally altered the course of American history. Shays and his army of four thousand rebels so shocked the young nation's governing elite--even drawing the retired General George Washington back into the service of his country--that ultimately the Articles of Confederation were discarded in favor of a new constitution, the very document that has guided the nation for more than two hundred years, and brought closure to the American Revolution. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe importance of Shays's Rebellion has never been fully appreciated, chiefly because Shays and his followers have always been viewed as a small group of poor farmers and debtors protesting local civil authority. In \u003ci\u003eShays's Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle\u003c\/i\u003e, Leonard Richards reveals that this perception is misleading, that the rebellion was much more widespread than previously thought, and that the participants and their supporters actually represented whole communities--the wealthy and the poor, the influential and the weak, even members of some of the best Massachusetts families. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough careful examination of contemporary records, including a long-neglected but invaluable list of the participants, Richards provides a clear picture of the insurgency, capturing the spirit of the rebellion, the reasons for the revolt, and its long-term impact on the participants, the state of Massachusetts, and the nation as a whole. Shays's Rebellion, though seemingly a local affair, was the revolution that gave rise to modern American democracy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLeonard L. Richards is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of numerous books, including The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860 and The Life and Times of Congressman John Quincy Adams, a finalist in 1987 for the Pulitzer Prize for biography.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50413238190354,"sku":"9780812218701","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_de4b65f4-d72f-4824-8343-4353c5f6dbdc.jpg?v=1729350304","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/shayss-rebellion-the-american-revolutions-final-battle-9780812218701","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}