Introduction -- Conflicting views -- A nineteenth-century view -- The revolution as a struggle between liberty and tyranny / George Bancroft -- Causes of the revolution -- Schools of interpretation -- The imperial school / Charles M. Andrews -- The namierist school / Eric Robson -- An economic interpretation / Louis M. Hacker -- Critique of schools of interpretation -- Revisionists in need of revising / Edmund S. Morgan -- Consequences of the revolution -- The revolution as a genuine revolutionary movement -- The revolution as a class conflict / Arthur M. Schlesinger -- Critique of the class conflict interpretation / Oscar and Mary F. Handlin -- The revolution as a social movement / J. Franklin Jameson -- A re-evaluation of the revolution as a social movement / Frederick B. Tolles -- The revolution as a democratic movement / Merrill Jensen -- The revolution as a conservative movement -- The revolution as a conservative movement in Massachusetts / Robert E. Brown -- Revolution without dogma / Daniel J. Boorstin -- The revolution and enlightenment ideas : a critique / Bernard Bailyn.