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Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution
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36/99
Critics' Rating Index
47/99
Readers' Rating Index
90/99
Scholars' Citation Index
92/99
Volume of Reviews
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About This Book
A "deeply researched and bracing retelling" (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americans—women, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters. Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a "spirited account" (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution ) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. "It is all one story," prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes. Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americans—enslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissenters—and on overlooked factors such as weather, North America's unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics. Liberty Is Sweet is a "must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation" (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin ), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turn—for example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the war—this majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew.
Reviews
"Like his Progressive predecessors, Holton does not take constitutional arguments very seriously ..."
"Even readers who think they know all about the Revolution will find here a much broader, provocative narrative and new perspectives."
"Holton's exhaustive, masterfully written chronicle demonstrates that the Revolution was much more than a movement instigated by the political ideologies of a handful of elite, revered (although flawed) Founding Fathers against the British parliament and king."
"Holton...delineates the story of the conflict in all its complexity, contradictions, and 'multiple dimensions' ..."
"Holton, then, threads the needle, expanding the spirit of the 1619 Project while bringing a granular scholarship and immersive storytelling in the mode of Gordon Wood and Sean Wilentz."
"Though he has a gift for pacing and narrative detail, this section, by far the longest of the book, can begin to feel antiquated."
"His writing sparkles in these chapters, in crisp, assured expositions."
"Holton throws down [a] challenge to his readers, providing a richly researched, carefully thought-out, and complicatedly inclusive history, an antidote to the current black-and-white thinking that's proving so divisive today."
"Skillfully probing the Revolution's ambiguities and inconsistencies, this richly detailed, multidimensional history casts America's founding in a revealing new light."
"This is a very different caricature than the one John Adams imagined, of a Revolution that began with Dr."
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