Editor’s note: Americans may think they know a lot about the Declaration of Independence, but many of those ideas are elitist and wrong, as historian Woody Holton explains.
His book, “Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution,” shows how independence and the Revolutionary War were influenced by women, Indigenous and enslaved people, religious dissenters, and other once-overlooked Americans.
In celebration of the United States’ birthday, Holton offers six surprising facts about the nation’s founding document – including that it failed to achieve its most immediate goal and that its meaning has changed from the founding to today.
