Jon Butler Becoming America Summary

In “Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776”, Jon Butler argues that there was massive economic and a political transformation occurred in the era of 1680 and 1770 which had been less examined to the American colonial history. In this book, Butler makes a strong argument for the early modernism of American society which helps to define the growth of American identity. The transformation improved the American socioeconomic character and demonstrated itself almost in every aspect of colonial life. I totally agree with the Jon Butler’s argument that the victories and defeats of the revolutionary war would not define America; it was the middle years of the colonial period that would. And his arguments in this book also challenge the existing history. Butler supports his argument from his own note which he collected from by researching huge amount of specialized history books.
In the first chapter, Butler explains the significance of the increasing population in the American Revolution. The colonies population was fifty thousand in 1650 which surpassed two million in 1700.

For Butler, housing, food, furnishing, and clothing were four main characteristics which shaped the colonists’ material world. Butler strongly argues that the colonists had a better diet than the European; there were massive changes also in the housing and clothing style. In chapter five, Butler discusses the religious life of colonists’. Butler believes that during the prerevolutionary period Colonial America became significantly diverse by the form of religion. According to Butler, Christianity was the prime religion in the colonies prior to 1680. The religious patterns in the 17th century were changed into new patterns which were Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, Lutheran, and Judaism. Butler says that this huge transformation of religious pattern also made a dynamic role in the American