Ok history buffs, this one’s for you. Back a few years ago I was able to visit Boston and the Bunker Hill memorial. Touring the city, I was amazed at how Boston has preserved so much of its colonial history. Boston
Ok history buffs, this one’s for you. Back a few years ago I was able to visit Boston and the Bunker Hill memorial. Touring the city, I was amazed at how Boston has preserved so much of its colonial history. Boston really was the little city that ignited the Revolutionary War.
Philbrick writes about an oft discussed period in our nation’s history, the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. What makes his book unique is that he focuses solely on the city of Boston and the events that transpired there during those years. Even when the historical gaze shifts southward to Philadelphia with the First and Second Continental Congress, Philbrick keeps his focus on this unique city of firebrands that had the audacity to stand up to the most powerful empire on earth: Great Britain. As Philbrick notes, “In the end, Boston is the true hero of this story. Whether its inhabitants came to view the Revolution as an opportunity or as a catastrophe, they all found themselves in the midst of a survival tale when on December 16, 1773, three shiploads of tea were dumped in Boston Harbor” (xvii).
He walks us through some familiar moments in history, such as the Boston Tea Party, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, and the Battle of Bunker Hill. His genius comes from the familiarity he develops between the reader and the subject. His extensive research and use of personal letters, combined with his fluid narrative writing style, makes this an easy read for those even remotely interested in this period of history.
1. It’s amazing how one city can change world history. Boston wasn’t the largest city in colonial America, nor was it the wealthiest. Yet it still changed the course of world history by igniting the American Revolution. Their unity of purpose (behind the patriots) and their unflinching courage in the face of intimidation led the way for the other thirteen colonies to follow.
2. The American Revolution was not an inevitability, but a result of a series of easily-avoided mistakes. Boston had been in the practice of resisting English laws and practices for a decade before the first shots