Essay Sample about Thomas Bender and The American Revolution

Thomas Bender has a lot to say about the American Revolution, and the new country that was formed after the war.  His main point that he is trying to get across is that the American Revolution was a small, insignificant war that was just a small point in a much larger worldwide war that Britain and most of Europe was entangled in.  Throughout the 1800’s, Britain and France were constantly fighting with each other for not only domination of Europe, but domination of the world.  Bender puts a lot of emphasis on this by constantly talking about the multiple wars that France and Britain fought throughout a 100 year period.  This “100 years war” was a long, grueling war for both sides.  Bender argues that the American Revolution was more or less just a skirmish compared to the 100 years old.  Leading up to the American Revolution, Britain and France had already gone through many years of war.  With both nations exhausted from fighting, being in severe debt, and not having a true winner of the wars, Britain and France decided to stop fighting.  Although almost everyone knew that the fighting would soon continue, this “grace period” gave the countries time to reorganize themselves.  During this time, Britain decided to begin taxing the colonies.  The colonies, not liking this, decided to revolt, and force the British out of America.  With France’s help, they were able to finally defeat the British.  This help from France was given to the Americans because France wanted to take away power from the British, and if Britain lost colonies, it would lose power.  This example once again proves the point Bender was making, the American Revolution was not seen by many as a great war that deserved attention, but rather something that would get the British and the French back to fighting again.  

After the American Revolution, things in the world carried on as usual.  Britain and France continued to be the most powerful nations on the planet, and America continued to be a small country in terms of wealth and power.  As the years progressed, America did begin to make strides both economically and politically.  America made smart decisions such as staying neutral in foregin affairs, and enlarging the country with the Louisiana Purchase.  America was also developing economically, much in part to Henry Clay, whose American System took America to new heights.  However, America soon ended their neutrality and isolationism with the Monroe Doctrine.  America wanted to expand its wealth and influence around the world, and they wanted to become one of the superpower nations like Britain and France.  They started to do this by trying to spread influence to Latin America.  America was not big enough to spread itself all the way to Europe, but if America could take control of Latin America without any other countries interfering, then they would be on the track towards becoming a powerful nation.  This was the plan with the Monroe Doctrine.  James Monroe wrote this document, almost as a threat to the rest of the world, not to further interfere with the Americas.  The other countries in Europe saw this as nothing, because they knew that America didn’t actually have the power to take on Europe.  

America had been through a lot in its first few decades as a country, and it had handled itself pretty well according to the history books.  However, Bender argues that, although throughout most of our lives, American history has been thought of as a great history that had a lot of impact on the world, when in reality, they had little importance on the world scale when the country was new.  Bender argues that Americans wrote American history, because no one else cared to.  This made America seem like a powerful nation, but in reality, they were just a thorn in other countries' sides.