Re: Centralized Government and Tyranny

[Parry, John]

Fred Anderson enormous Crucible of War synthesizes the work of a number of scholars to argue that we should pay greater attention to the tensions between the colonies and England that emerged during the Seven Years War.  It's also a very readable narrative.   John T. Parry Associate Professor of Law University of Pittsburgh School of Law 3900 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 412-648-7006   -----Original Message----- From: Scarberry, Mark [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 12:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Centralized Government and Tyranny   Let me suggest John Phillip Reid's 4 volume Constitutional History of the American Revolution. I haven't read very much of it (yet), but interestingly it portrays the colonies as being in an intractable dispute more with the British parliament than with the king. Gross oversimplification: The English Civil War was not too far in the past, and the parliament was unwilling to consider what might otherwise have been an achievable resolution -- a commonwealth in which the American colonies were united to Britain by common allegiance to the king. Such a resolution would have given the king a new source of power independent of the British parliament, namely revenues from the American colonies that might be approved by an American parliament. Preventing the king from regaining power that had been taken from the Crown (during the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution) was parliament's overriding concern. If I remember correctly, Reid notes that at one point the American forces (surrounding the British forces in Boston) identified themselves as being on the king's side in a dispute with parliament.   There is a summary of Reid's thesis at the end (I believe) of volume 4.   Mark S. Scarberry Pepperdine University School of Law   -----Original Message----- From: Robert Justin Lipkin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 8:45 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Centralized Government and Tyranny          Can anyone suggest scholarship describing the beginning of the King's tyranny over the American colonies?  (Alternatively, when did the colonists begin to resent English rule? Was it a discrete event--such as the Stamp Act--or, what seems much more likely, did it develop slowly?  If so, when did this process begin? I'm interested more in cultural history than political history, but I'll take whatever I can get.) More importantly, when did the colonists acquire (develop, create) the idea of a centralized government? Off-list replies are fine.  Thanks in advance. Bobby Lipkin Widener University School of Law Delaware