This is CBSI on the world.

I'm John Batchel with Professor Joseph Ellis.

New book is The Cause, the American Revolution, and its discontents.

How the participants thought about the conflict over eight years, beginning, well, you can

date it from 75 from Lexington Concord, but you can also date it from 73

in the Tea Party. Cornwallis, George Cornwallis, who wins some pointless battles, taking pointless

towns, comes up against something that was always critical to the success of the American rebellion. That is, that there

were sympathies everywhere throughout the colonies for defying the crowd. And, Professor, did Germain

understand that? Did George III understand it that no defeat of Washington's army or

Green's army was going to defeat the colonies?

I don't think they ever fully grasped the depth of the commitment at the ground level.

And from the beginning of the, even before the declaration, these committees were functioning at the town level,

committees of safety and inspection, enforcing commitment to the cause.

And essentially, it politicized the entire backcountry and countryside.

And what it did was meant you could not remain neutral. I would think that 40% were for the cause, about 20% were against it,

and 40% in the middle wanted it to just go away.

And that 40% in the middle couldn it to just go away and that 40 percent in the middle

couldn't remain in that position and because of the control in the countryside by

local militia and by townspeople so you had a house and your neighbor would come up

and if you don't sign you're going to be marked as a traitor and eventually

we're going to burn your house down. We're not going to kill you, but we're going to drive you

out. And that's the control of the countryside is the crucial thing that means that the British

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