American Revolution - Episode 5

 Importance of American Revolution

• America became independent and a new nationalism was developed, i.e. American.

• This revolution taught the world to make government in a new way - mass-based government and not the leader-based government.

•  A nation can be an anti-imperialist (साम्राज्यवाद विरोधी) nation, i.e. America was not in support of making colonies in other countries.

• The world got a lesson that, people can be united for reforms, revolutions or any other cause.

• Idea of federalism found real world application.

• No person can be inherently superior to any other person. Anyone can lead a country, anyone can be head of state.

• Inspired other revolutions, specially French revolution and Latin American (South American) revolution in 19th century.

• British Empire changed its policies and brought few administrative reforms in its colonies.

Criticisms on American Revolution:

• Rights were not given to every people. It was given to men who were holding properties and have high profile in society. It was given to landlords but the general public found no change in their lifestyles. Before revolutions, they used to pay tax to British and after revolutions, they were paying taxes to government. Only 15 to 20 percentage of population were enjoying freedom from British rule.
• No rights were given to slaves and women. Slaves in America was almost 30% of population and 50% of population was of women. They were deprived from all rights. They were still traded in market.
• Power was taken from rich white English men and given to rich white American men.
• Ideas were strong but policies/implementation part was very weak.

Reference

Study IQ education. (2017b, April 19). अमेरिकी क्रान्ति - American Revolution + American Civil War - World History for IAS/UPSC/PCS/SSC [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je0sb56tiqg