American Tempest: The Boston Tea Party & How It Ignited the American Revolution | Historical Book for US History Enthusiasts & Students
$10.7
$19.46
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American Tempest: The Boston Tea Party & How It Ignited the American Revolution | Historical Book for US History Enthusiasts & Students
$10.7
$19.46
45% Off
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SKU: 19437429
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Description
On Thursday, December 16, 1773, an estimated seven dozen men, many amateurishly disguised as Indians--then a symbol of freedom--dumped about 10,000 worth of tea in the harbor. Whatever their motives at the time, they unleashed a social, political, and economic firestorm that would culminate in the Declaration of Independence two and a half years later. The Boston Tea Party provoked a reign of terror in Boston and other American cities, as Americans began inflicting unimaginable barbarities on each other. Tea parties erupted up and down the colonies. The turmoil stripped tens of thousands of Americans of their dignity, their homes, their properties, and their birthrights--in the name of liberty and independence. Nearly 100,000 Americans left the land of their forefathers forever in what was history's largest exodus of Americans from America. Nonetheless, John Adams called the Boston Tea Party nothing short of "magnificent." And he went on to say that the "destruction of tea is so bold, so daring, so firm...it must have important consequences." Ironically, few if any Americans today--even those who call themselves Tea Party Patriots--would be able to name even one of the estimated eighty participants in the original Boston Tea Party. Nor are many Americans aware of the "important consequences" of the Tea Party. The acute shortage of tea that followed the Tea Party, of course, helped transform Americans into coffee drinkers, but its effects went far beyond culinary tastes. The Tea Party would affect so many American minds, hearts, and souls that it helped spawn a new, independent nation whose citizens would govern themselves.
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5
This is a 'gritty' account of the events at Boston that led to the spark of the American Revolution. Gritty in that it is a rendition that is not often told - exposing a good bit of the selfish motivations and oafish methods of our forefathers. Why any of this surprises should be the surprise. American historiography probably got off to a bad start with the 'gushing' Parson Weems-style renditions so popular in the 19th century, placing the founders on a pedestal of reverence impossible to fully justify even with a cursory examination, and then it became the expectation.Author Harlow Giles Unger begins "American Tempest" with 'first principals': in this account, the founders are humans and decidedly not saints. The story exposes motivations - not always - but often led by economics, or personal power: no differently than today. The British quandary over American reaction to a relatively trivial tax, on a commodity unimportant in American society, for a purpose essential to American security can be understood. For the Americans, there was an essential indignity underlying the whole of the taxes that had less to do with economics than dignity. The colonies had matured to a point that their control by a parliament thousands of miles away, led by an effete class, in which they held no sway at all became the real ignitor for the conflagration that followed.A very recommended read, "American Tempest" treats an old topic in a modern light. Unger's writing style is certain, urgent, and efficient. The story is relatively brief by today's standards, 240 pages plus afterward materials, which keeps it well paced and on-topic and told so compellingly that a 5th star is justified. Once let go of the notion of the 'Sainted Founder', the reader is exposed to the events in a way that gets to a clearer understanding of BOTH sides, and at the end much better enlightens, yet still leaves the pedestals of the founders untoppled. Also - for a British view of the whole Revolution see O'Shaughnessy's brilliant: The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire.
