Includes bibliographical references (p. 263-276) and index.

"The thirteen colonies' War of Independence against Great Britain evokes images all Americans are familiar with: an overbearing British government tightening the chains of empire and squeezing the pockets of colonists with exorbitant taxes; George Washington's army suffering through Valley Forge but persevering to fight on; Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and other Founding Fathers renouncing the "tyranny" of Crown rule and vigilantly guiding the fledgling government. Yet the American myth that we are reared in, that we celebrate every July Fourth, and that is time and again used in political rhetoric deserves critical examination." "In this iconoclastic assessment of America's revolutionary period, political scientist Leland G. Stauber presents a fundamental reinterpretation of the birth and the subsequent development of the United States. He challenges head-on the prevailing American national saga, arguing that our independence from Britain was premature and that the experience of Canada has in many ways been preferable."--BOOK JACKET