The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia

Required reading for students of the American Revolution.--The Historian

One of the strongest demonstrations yet of the inseparability of the social from the political questions of the Revolutionary era. . . . Captures the texture and the ironies of the home front in what might best be called the first civil war.--Journal of Southern History

Demands careful reading by all who write or care about eighteenth-century Virginia.--The Journal of American History

There is much that is fresh and valuable in this book.---American Historical Review

A big book in every sense of the word. . . . Contribute[s] greatly to the social history of the Revolutionary War. . . . Our sense of what the Revolution was and was not is considerably better now than it was before McDonnell's substantial achievement.--William and Mary Quarterly

One of the more important recent additions to American colonial and Revolutionary historiography.--Journal of the Early Republic

McDonnell's impressive research allows him to give a fully rounded story of the multifaceted conflict within Virginia.--Journal of Interdisciplinary History

[An] impressive work. . . . An extremely detailed picture of Virginia at war. . . . [A] deeply researched and radical new take on the War for Independence and the creation of the American Revolution.--Journal of American Studies

Explores in some depth the tension between the elite and allegedly 'plebian' citizens during the Revolutionary War.--Choice

[An] extensively researched, clearly written analysis. . . . Offers a blueprint for how historians should examine the attempts by various groups of Americans to acquire liberty and independence in the second half of the eighteenth century.--Common-place