What are the main theses in the book Inheriting the Revolution?

One of the most dominant ideas in Appleby's work is the
idea of how the nation of America came to be.  It is almost taken for granted, that
colonists morphed into revolutionaries and then morphed into America and then into North
and South.  This is the dialectic that has framed the nation for some time.  Appleby
seeks to analyze how individuals actually moved the dialectic along or even framed it. 
Understanding that individuals are locked, trapped, into their time periods and cannot
see past the conditions they cannot understand, she compiles evidence from personal
narrative, shared understandings, and autobiographical data to examine the character of
individuals who moved the nation from colony to nation- state.  In the process, Appleby
asserts that there must be such a condition as "American identity," as reflected in the
individuals who started the revolution and those who inherited it and moved the country
to an established nation -state of power.