| 1776 - America and Britain at war
(2005)
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| Front Cover |
Book Details |
Back Cover |
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| Genre |
Non-Fiction |
| Subject |
United States - History - Revolution, 1775-1783 |
| Publication Date |
5/24/2005 |
| Format |
Hardcover (9.5
x
6.5
mm)
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| Publisher |
Simon & Schuster |
| Language |
English |
| Extras |
Dust Jacket; Dust Jacket Cover |
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| Description |
| In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.Here also is the Revolution as experienced by American Loyalists, Hessian mercenaries, politicians, preachers, traitors, spies, men and women of all kinds caught in the paths of war.At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books -- Nathanael Greene, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of winter.But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost -- Washington, who had never before led an army in battle.The book begins in London on October 26, 1775, when His Majesty King George III went before Parliament to declare America in rebellion and to affirm his resolve to crush it. From there the story moves to the Siege of Boston and its astonishing outcome, then to New York, where British ships and British troops appear in numbers never imagined and the newly proclaimed Continental Army confronts the enemy for the first time. David McCullough's vivid rendering of the Battle of Brooklyn and the daring American escape that followed is a part of the book few readers will ever forget.As the crucial weeks pass, defeat follows defeat, and in the long retreat across New Jersey, all hope seems gone, until Washington launches the "brilliant stroke" that will change history.The darkest hours of that tumultuous year were as dark as any Americans have known. Especially in our own tumultuous time, 1776 is powerful testimony to how much is owed to a rare few in that brave founding epoch, and what a miracle it was that things turned out as they did.Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history. |
| Personal Details |
| Store |
American Political Biography Press |
| Purchase Price |
$10.00 |
| Acquire Date |
12/5/2019 |
| Condition |
Very Good/Very Good |
| Rating |
0 |
| Links |
Library of Congress
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| Product Details |
| LoC Classification |
E208 .M396 2005 |
| Dewey |
973.3 |
| ISBN |
9780743226714 |
| Cover Price |
$32.00 |
| No. of Pages |
400 |
| First Edition |
No |
| Rare |
No |
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| Notes/Review |
I haven't read all of McCullough's works, but I've thoroughly enjoyed all that I have read. So I picked this one up without bothering to find out what it's about.
I thought it would be a general history of America concentrating on the year 1776. Close, but no cigar. It's about what happened in the war of independence during that calendar year. Specifically, it covers the military events starting with the siege of Boston, continuing through the disastrous campaign in New York, and ending with the battles of Trenton and Princeton.
Our main characters are George Washington (obviously), Nathaniel Greene, and Henry Knox. The text is clear and concise, not going on unnecessary side-trips. We start a few months before 1776 to provide some context, but the scene is set fairly efficiently. Some might argue that the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill might be briefly described, but I didn't find this absence detrimental. The denouement is similarly terse. The book covers "what it says on the tin".
I'd like to have seen some simple line drawings of maps of the battles that are covered. There are a couple of color plates with Boston and New York, but they're reproductions of historical documents and, while interesting, could be clearer.
One of the first McCullough books I read was his Adams biography. That started a years-long project to read whole-life biographies of the US presidents in chronological order. Obviously, starting with Adams meant that I skipped Washington. I recently picked up the four-volume set authored by Flexner, so I'll get Washington's story in detail. 1776 has gotten me interested in learning more about Greene and Knox. Already on my to-read list is Wood's Battles of the Revolutionary War. If that tome doesn't satisfy me as to those two characters, I'll seek out biographies of them. |
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