1774

November 15, 2019
Study of a tumultuous time that shaped 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies into a breakaway nation. The great takeaway from this deeply researched, occasionally plodding history by Norton (Emerita, American History/Cornell Univ., Separated by Their Sex: Women in Public and Private in the Colonial Atlantic World, 2011, etc.) is that taxation without representation is reason for restiveness and rebellion. Yet, as she notes, Colonial Americans were not entirely indisposed to paying taxes to the British Crown: The colonists were so enamored of tea that it was difficult for even the most independent-minded to avoid paying the consumption tax the British government placed on it--twice, in fact: once when it arrived in England and once when it arrived in the Colonies. One solution was to acquire tea on the black market, brought in illegally from non-British Caribbean countries or from Holland. Boston alone, writes the author, brought in 265,000 pounds of taxed tea in 1771--but another "575,000 pounds of smuggled tea." Norton delivers a densely argued account of the economy of tea and other commodities, such as tobacco. The former, in particular, served as a flash point for revolution come the so-called Boston Tea Party that closed the year 1773 and during much of the turmoil of 1774, which would finally boil over in the armed uprising at Concord and Lexington and its spread into revolutionary war. Though the book is most useful to specialist readers, of particular interest are episodes that illustrate how Colonial thinkers viewed the prospect of war with the mother country in that climacteric period. These include a legally minded cleric who calculated that since King George III had effectively broken his bargain with America by "levying war upon us," all bets were off and the Colonies owed allegiance to neither monarch nor Parliament. Norton makes a good case for considering 1774 and not 1776 to be the foundational year of the new republic.

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December 2, 2019
Pulitzer Prize finalist Norton (Separated by Their Sex) presents a meticulous and persuasive chronicle of the “debates, disagreements, and disruptions” that shaped political discourse in colonial America prior to the Revolutionary War. Beginning with the Boston Tea Party in December 1773 and concluding with the clashes at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, Norton reveals that the period was more discordant than is commonly believed. She notes that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington disapproved of the destruction of the East India Company’s tea, and that Massachusetts merchant John Hancock was the first to propose an “intercolonial congress” in anticipation of the British government’s response. After receiving news that Parliament had voted to close Boston’s port, town leaders called on the other colonies to join a retaliatory boycott of trade with England. New York City, Norton writes, became the “progenitor of public Loyalism” in the fall of 1774, as conservative colonists and merchants eager to supply British troops occupying Boston learned that the First Continental Congress would endorse nonimportation. Making extensive use of pamphlets, newspaper articles, correspondence, and meeting minutes, Norton brings underappreciated figures such as Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson to the fore, and elucidates complex developments in all 13 colonies. This ambitious deep dive will remind readers that America has a long history of building consensus out of fractious disputes.

November 15, 2019
Scholar Norton wants readers to know there was nothing simple about the tumultuous year of 1774 in the soon-to-be United States. Starting in late 1773 and proceeding until the spring of 1775, this step-by-step walk through political events in the American colonies casts aside any notions of consensus and unanimity. History is most certainly told by the winners, but contemporary newspaper accounts, letters, and sermons provide the narratives not told in our modern textbooks. The story of the Boston Tea Party, passed down throughout American history, is brought into the light as a multifaceted, controversial event. This laying out of detailed facts concerning everything from the aforementioned tea-dumping to the First Continental Congress encourages readers to question previous assumptions. Norton quotes firsthand accounts and draws on her long history of Loyalist scholarship to underline that what now seems an inevitable page in American history was not always so clear, and the past that we harken back to is sometimes all too similar to our present day.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2019

Norton (Founding Mothers & Fathers) emphasizes that during the "long 1774," from the Boston Tea Party in December 1773 until the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, there were critical shifts in sentiment and action regarding British control throughout all of the American colonies. Thoughts of reconciliation with Great Britain turned toward revolution within months. The author examines contemporary documents to reveal the polarizing disagreements and debates among both common and prominent colonists that historians have generally disregarded. Opposition to radical views was suppressed through intimidation and lack of access to the press, giving the perception that radical thought was pervasive. "Patriotic terror"--threats of death, injury, property destruction, and defamation--prevented conservatives from speaking out. Meanwhile, local committees tyrannically enforced the agreement to boycott British goods passed by the first Continental Congress in the fall of 1774. VERDICT Norton's cogent discussion of the details of the "long year" will appeal to colonial and revolutionary period scholars and enthusiasts. Her inclusion of suppressed female and loyalist voices should be applauded. [See Prepub Alert, 8/5/19.]--Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2019

Pulitzer Prize finalist Norton (Founding Mothers & Fathers) draws on pamphlets, newspapers, and personal correspondence to reconstruct the political conversation that raged in the American Colonies from the Boston Tea Party in December 1773 to the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. At that time, governors began informing London that they couldn't stop the rising power of revolutionaries, and even loyalists conceded that war was inevitable.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.