I am writing this to highlight an unacknowledged debt and to add some nuance to David S. Reynolds's review of Alan Taylor's "American Republics" (July 4). Reynolds gave him singular credit for uncovering regional and sectional schisms in the Revolutionary period, proclaiming that no other history of that period "emphasizes the fragility of the American experiment as strongly as Taylor's book does." I know it's been a long time, but my book, "Sectionalism in American Politics: 1774-1787," did just that 45 years ago. Taylor makes no mention of it, which I find odd from a reputable, prizewinning historian. Sectionalism, the seminal topic in Taylor's book, is, after all, the first word in my book's title. My mentors taught me that historians owe a debt to those who came before.