The American Revolution: A Grand Mistake

By Leland G. Stauber
Prometheus Books, $27.00, 292 pages

Frightening and unpatriotic in its premise, well-researched and surprisingly making some sense, Stauber tries to sell us the idea that America and life in general would have been better off without our complete independence from Britain in 1783.

The concept sounds baffling at first but when considering Britain outlawed slavery in 1833 and Lincoln didn’t make his Emancipation Proclamation until 1863, it isn’t so farfetched. Where other former colonies modeled themselves after Britain’s parliament, our fervor to be as anti-British as possible created a system of checks and balances that is best described as cumbersome.

As interesting as it is to play the “what if” game, you can’t change the facts. For good or bad, the American Revolution happened and it is the event we all stand behind as a shining moment in American history. Stauber tended to drone on about other governments, other colonies, and other emancipations to the point that the reader was left wondering what the point of this book was. If the information had instead been presented in a short essay, it might anger a lot less people.

Reviewed by Gwen Stackler