Bold Men In Ruffled Shirst and A Kind of Revolution

Bold Men In Ruffled Shirst and A Kind of Revolution present two different sides of the American Revolution. Bold Men In Ruffled Shirts focuses more on the leaders of the revolution, while A Kind of Revolution focuses more in its participants. Everyone knows George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Benjamin Franklin. These men are considered the heroes of the Revolutionary war - "the longest war in our history and the most important". Why, then, did Zinn make them seem like the enemy in A Kind of Revolution? Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hancock, and Franklin were all wealthy and educated men. If they were able to criticize the way they were treated by the British, why couldn't they have second thoughts about their relationship with their fellow countrymen? Thomas Jefferson specifically compared his experience under British rule to slavery, yet he owned slaves, and couldn't seem to find a problem with that. One fact I was surprised to learn in A Kind of Revolution was that it wasn't just minority groups that weren't allowed to participate in the war. White men were excluded as well! When men of this kind were finally recruited for purposes of desperation, not all of them were comfortable fighting. Our so called heroes were "offering the adventure and rewards of military service to get poor people to fight for a cause they may not see clearly as their own". A Kind of Revolution was very similar to Zinn's American Ideology in that rich people seemed to be in control of society.