Download Discussion Questions for chapter 8

Discussion Questions for chapter 8
1. Why was the Battle of Saratoga such a key to American success in the Revolutionary War?
2. What were the causes and consequences of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776?
3. Describe the different courses of the Revolutionary War in New England, the middle Atlantic states,
and the South. What role did the battles in each region play in the eventual American victory?
4. Why did Americans choose not only to break from Britain, but to adopt a republican form of
government in 1776? What republican ideas did they share, and what did they disagree about?
5. Who were the Loyalists, and what role did they play during the Revolution, and what happened to them
afterward?
6. What role did France play in winning America’s independence? How does the American Revolution fit
into the series of “world war” described in chapter 6?
7. What was radical and new in the Declaration of Independence, and what was old and traditional? What
did statements like “all men are crated equal” mean in their historical context, and what did they come to
mean later?
8. Was military strategy or politics the key to the American victory in the war? How did the two coincide?
9. Did the Loyalists deserve to be persecuted and driven out of the country? What difference does it make
to understand the Revolution as a civil war between Americans as well as a war against the British?
10. What has the Revolution meant to later generations of Americans, including our own? Do we still
think of the United States as a revolutionary nation? Why or why not?