Professor Thomas Slaughter has provided a very comprehensive overview of the Whiskey Rebellion, which he says at the time of the conception of this book, almost two centuries later the occurrence of the episode, had become a largely forgotten chapter in our nation's history since the days of the Civil War. He cites as direct evidence of this fact the almost complete absence of any mention of the event in many contemporary textbooks from the conservative era of the 1980s, to which this reviewer can also attest, having been a high school student in the late 1970s, who didn't hear about the whiskey rebellion until years later. Drawing on his own thesis on the subject, the author convincingly shows that the Whiskey Rebellion was in fact an event of momentous importance to the future of the fledgling United States of America, which was spawned by the head-on collision of various countries. large-scale forces and factors in the still fairly primitive environs of western Pennsylvania this summer and fall. Slaughter argues that we must place the border at the center of the great political debates of the era and fully explore the ideological, social, political, and personal contexts surrounding the episode in order to fully understand the importance of its place in American history . In doing so, the author has produced a highly readable work that can be enjoyed by casual readers, who will likely find the individual vignettes that open each chapter particularly fascinating and a very useful basis for further research by future scholars into the importance of the border. region with regard to nationwide events in the early days of the republic. He sets out to explore these important facets of the drama by dividing the work into...... middle of paper ......ke George Washington, in particular, had veritable fortunes personally invested in the outcome. His work also shows that this was not a localized protest consisting of just a handful of ardent participants from what was then the extreme fringe of American civilization, but that dissent was in fact a crisis widespread, which particularly had the desired effect. risks causing the loss of the new nation. Slaughter reveals that the extreme sectionalism that plagued the nation throughout its first century of existence was well established before the dawn of the 19th century. He also asserts that precedent was set regarding the question of national versus state or local authority, and that precedent has remained in effect ever since. Works Cited Slaughter, Thomas P. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution. New York: Oxford Univ Press, 1986. 291. Print.