In a provocative new book, historian Eli Merritt argues that the Thirteen Colonies only overcame their differences and united into a single entity due to an existential fear of civil war, collapse, and invasion. That fear is now gone. This week on Deconstructed, Merritt joins Ryan Grim to discuss his new book, “Disunion Among Ourselves: The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution.” Merritt argues that the founders — motivated by surviving as an independent government — united to avoid a civil war between the colonies. The “survivalist interpretation” of the nation’s founding, he explains, led to a historic “shotgun wedding”: a compromise-laden journey leading to the Declaration of Independence and a failure to confront slavery.

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