A history of the settlement of the Ohio River Valley in the late eighteenth century.
"Griffin focuses on what is least republican about the early Republic. His America—authoritarian, forged in violence—is a beast future historians of the Revolutionary period will need to reckon with." —The New York Sun
Exploring the dark and bloody ground of the American frontier around the time of the struggle for independence, Patrick Griffin's American Leviathan unearths a story of backcountry revolution. While the colonies to the east waged a ware for freedom from British rule, the scene in the Ohio Valley was far more chaotic, and far bloodier. Between 1763 and 1795, colonial settlers, imperial powers, and Indians vied for influence and control in a brutally Hobbesian world that was tamed only by the expulsion of the Indians and the establishment of an American nation.
While participating in the war for independence, the frontiersmen engaged in a separate battle that would usher in fundamental changes in social relations, political allegiances, and assumptions about the relationship between individuals and society. American Leviathan recounts the revolution as it happened in the West, telling of the rise and fall of Britain's North American colonies, the birth of a new nation, and the violence and competition that bridged the two. In vivid detail, Griffin recaptures the turmoil that shaped the American West, and consequently the United States as a whole, during its most formative period.
"Griffin's erudite account places ordinary settlers of America's frontier at the center of eighteenth-century political revolutions. . . . Griffin judiciously weaves analysis into riveting stories of riots and unrest, and weds attention to race and marginalized people with traditional political and military history." —Publishers Weekly
"Griffin's effective account ably captures the political culture of the West. . . . This well-written treatment makes a valuable contribution." —History Today
