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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
"Until now I'd not grasped the machinations of battles such as Breed's (also known as Bunker) Hill or Cowpens, or even Washington's iconic crossing of the Delaware River ..."
"A rich, multifaceted work showing how the U.S."
"Skillfully probing the Revolution's ambiguities and inconsistencies, this richly detailed, multidimensional history casts America's founding in a revealing new light."
"His deeper goal includes how the Revolution was shaped by not only the continent's previous inhabitants, but also by the dream of liberty of the thousands of enslaved people who had been transported across the Atlantic from Africa ..."
"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."
"Franklin's electric rod, but it is a caricature nevertheless."
"Like his Progressive predecessors, Holton does not take constitutional arguments very seriously ..."
"As Holton moves from the French and Indian War to the War of Independence, he spends much time on the battlefield."
"By widening the scope of what he looks at, Holton delivers a much more interesting and complicated story than the traditional legend of the nation's founding ..."
"His book's real achievement may be to redirect academic historians' attention to the battlefields and to appreciating anew some of the least hidden aspects of the Revolution ..."
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