Aram Bakshian Jr. on two new histories—one of the Revolutionary War, one of the Civil War. 1003 ARTS & MANNERS Patricia Brooks loves Galicia, particularly Santiago de Compostela Ruth Berenson rummages through New England’s antique stores Martin Williams is happy about the way television has developed. 958 Na t io n a l Re v iew

The War of American Independence By Don Higginbotham Macmillan, 509 pp., $12.95

The War for the Union: The Organized War 1863-1864 By Allan Nevins Scribners, 531 pp., $15 The beauty of the American Revolution was that it never really happened. A small-scale independence struggle was fought, a few years were spent puttering about with unsuccessful forms of government, and a durable Constitution was adopted. The dislocation of the war led to some switches in the leadership elite; spreading frontiers and an expanding economy gave ambitious elements of the population widening outlets and a gradually extended franchise; but, there was no revolution in the ugly sense of the word—no reign of terror and no grim metamorphosis from parlor democracy to mob rule to despotism.

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Aram Bakshian Jr.

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The War of American Independence By Don Higginbotham Macmillan, 509 pp., $12.95

The War for the Union: The Organized War 1863-1864 By Allan Nevins Scribners, 531 pp., $15 The beauty of the American Revolution was that it never really happened. A small-scale independence struggle was fought, a few years were spent puttering about with unsuccessful forms of government, and a durable Constitution was adopted. The dislocation of the war led to some switches in the leadership elite; spreading frontiers and an expanding economy gave ambitious elements of the population widening outlets and a gradually extended franchise; but, there was no revolution in the ugly sense of the word—no reign of terror and no grim metamorphosis from parlor democracy to mob rule to despotism.