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Timely-take aways for life-long learners: Revolutionary Period Perspectives
Whether exploring individuals, groups, or events, several new works of nonfiction share different perspectives and innovative thinking about the Revolutionary War period.

Liberty is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution
Woody Holton, 2021, Simon & Schuster
Themes: History, United States history, Revolutionary period
LIBERTY IS SWEET examines the essential, yet lesser-known roles of women, enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, and others in the fight for liberty.
Take-aways: Many educators are rebuilding their history curriculum with an emphasis on the roles of marginalized Americans. Use Holton’s many examples to revisit this period.

The Last King of America
Andrew Roberts, 2021, Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House
Themes: History, Biography, Revolutionary period
THE LAST KING OF AMERICA is a well-researched biography providing depth and detail to our understanding of George III, his monarchy, and the American Revolution.
Take-aways: Update the curriculum by shifting the traditional caricature of King George III to a multiple-dimensional leader facing both political and personal challenges.

Our First Civil War: Patriots and Loyalists in the American Revolution
H.W. Brands, 2021, Anchor, an imprint of Penguin Random House
Themes: History, United States history, Revolutionary period
OUR FIRST CIVIL WAR describes the challenges faced by individuals, families, and communities forced to choose sides in a violent revolution.
Take-aways: Use Brand’s approach to rethink how the various sides of the conflict are presented to students. Encourage discussions about family and friendship in war.

Winning Independence: The Decisive Years of the Revolutionary War, 1778-1781

John Ferling, 2021, Bloomsbury Publishing, an imprint of Macmillan
Themes: History, United States history, Revolutionary period
WINNING INDEPENDENCE explores Britain’s mid-war pivot, France’s involvement, and other key events that culminated in the American independence.
Take-aways: The curriculum often fast-forwards through the second half of the war. Use Ferling’s book to add depth and detail to this period.

The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain’s Wars for America
Julie Flavell, 2021, Liveright, an imprint of W. W. Norton
Themes: History, European history, Great Britain, Georgian era
THE HOWE DYNASTY uses engaging nonfiction narrative to re-examine the roles of both the men and women of this influential, 18th century British family.
Take-aways: Expand the curriculum to include more detail about the British perspective leading up to the Revolutionary period through the eyes of a British family.

Liberty: Don Troiani’s Paintings of the Revolutionary War
Don Troiani, 2021, Stackpole Books/National Book Network
Themes: History, United States history, Revolutionary period
LIBERTY examines the works of Don Troiani at the Museum of the American Revolution. Known for both artistry and accuracy, these paintings reflect pivotal events in the Revolutionary Period.
Take-aways: Use Troiani’s works and artifacts to jumpstart lessons focusing on specific people, places, and events central to the period.

Whether helping educators keep up-to-date in their subject-areas, promoting student reading in the content-areas, or simply encouraging nonfiction leisure reading, teacher librarians need to be aware of the best new titles across the curriculum and how to activate life-long learning. - Annette Lamb

A well written and very readable biography. Abigail Adams is a fascinating and interesting woman. She is *not* a feminist as she held many racist and sexist views, none the less she is very interesting.
I really loved this biographer. He was fair and included many negative aspects of Abigail without defending or explaining them.
I will definitely read more histories by this author.

The author does a good job of introducing us to the domestic life and interior thoughts of this eighteenth century feminist. Her life was interesting and inspiring in many ways. Unfortunately, her racist comments were also a disappointing discovery for me. All in all, worth the read.

A fascinating look at Abigail Adams. Most of us know about her “Remember the Ladies” appeal to her husband. This bio also shows her financial astuteness in spite of women having little legal power in that arena. She often advised other women (especially her sisters) on how to be financially stable after marriage and preparation for their possible widowhood — this was at a time when men generally had financial control but for some loopholes. Abigail Adams was definitely a woman ahead of her times.

In Forced Founders, Woody Holton argues “that the Independence movement was…powerfully influenced by British merchants and by three groups that today would be called grassroots: Indians, farmers, and slaves.” Holton argues against the tendency to transpose the New England narrative of the American Revolution onto the South, explaining how the road to revolution in Virginia was unique to the circumstances within that colony. Holton constructs his narrative using letters, court documents, publications in newspapers, and a close reading of the Declaration of Independence itself. In examining the letters and publications of gentry tobacco farmers, Holton “casts doubt upon the Progressive historians’ claim that free Virginians participated in the American Revolution in order to repudiate their debts.” While debt is a prevailing theme in Holton’s work, he makes clear that it worked in conjunction with the social system of Virginia, with its conflicts between white Virginians and slaves, English colonists and Indians, and smallholders and the gentry. With its admittedly limited focus, Forced Founders demonstrates that traditionally subaltern groups played a crucial role in shaping the course of the American Revolution.
Holton discusses threatened slave uprisings and conflicts between Native Americans and the Virginia gentry through the role of debt and power disparities in creating and maintaining relationships between the gentry, those beneath them on the social ladder, and British merchants. Indians’ land claims and the Proclamation of 1763 threatened the future economic prosperity of smallholders and gentry seeking to secure land beyond the proclamation line. Without the ability to secure clear title to the land, both smallholders and the gentry faced the possibility of losing their investments and descending into debt. Holton’s choice to distinguish these investors from spectators challenges the assumptions of historians Theda Perdue, Michael D. Green, Freeman Hansford Hart, Norman K. Risjord, and others. The threat of slave resistance created a “permanent undercurrent of fear in the minds of most whites in the Chesapeake.” When the Earl of Dunmore threatened to turn slaves against masters and removed the slave owners’ access to gunpowder, he posed a danger to the delicate social hierarchy of colonial Virginia. Holton argues, “In a colony where 40 percent of the population was enslaved, there must be no cracks in the foundation of white solidarity.” Though much of Holton’s argument relies on the perspective of the Virginia gentry, a group he loosely defines, he successfully demonstrates how the actions of Indians and slaves initiated the gentry’s revolutionary actions. Despite focusing on the relationships between the gentry and groups subordinate to them, Holton does not write a bottom-up history. His source base, primarily written or published by the gentry themselves, limits the voices of smallholders and entirely silences the voices of African slaves and Native Americans. Instead, Holton presents the influence of Indians and slaves through the perspective of the gentry, who based their politics on the perceived threats of both groups.
Debt plays a pivotal role in Holton’s analysis of revolutionary Virginia. Holton writes, “Debt destroyed not only lives and families but the personal independence that free Virginians cherished.” Virginia planters were entirely beholden to the British marketplace both to import the goods they required for maintaining their social standing and to sell their tobacco. Even the profits they made from their tobacco were a result of the prohibition against growing tobacco in England. Though many in Virginia cautioned against overconsumption, Holton argues that the gentry could not simply cease purchasing goods from England. He writes, “A smallholder that stopped patronizing the Scottish stores or a gentleman that suddenly stopped placing orders with merchants in England and Scotland was, in effect, telling them that he had become a bad credit risk.” Amid such fears, Holton argues that non-exportation and non-importation, while useful to the Revolution, also helped the Virginia planters to drive up demand for tobacco and ease the impetus to purchase finished goods, for, while farmers’ “British creditors might disagree with their politics,” it “was better than having their creditworthiness questioned.” Holton writes, “Although the American Revolution in Virginia was in part the tax revolt we all learn about in grade school, it was also a class conflict pitting Virginia tobacco growers against the British merchants that, with the help of the Royal Navy, monopolized their trade.” While previous historians focused on the Intolerable Acts and New England’s motivations for revolution, Holton demonstrated that Virginia had its own unique reasons to challenge British authority, most of which resulted from threats to the economic hierarchy.
Responding to earlier historiography, Holton writes, “Studying the social context of the American Revolution reveals that historians of its origins have erred in taking a model developed for northern colonies and applying it without modification to those below the Mason-Dixon line.” Holton’s greatest success comes from this focused approach and how he subtly shifts the historiography to demonstrate that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Lee family joined the Revolution to maintain the status quo in Virginia rather than acting out of entirely noble ambitions. Though the gentry feared the loss of power associated with a democracy, they eventually agreed to a republican government to prevent anarchy and mollify “the farmer’s wrath if they continued to thwart the popular demand for an independent republic.” Holton’s discussion with the historiography plays out in the format of the book. His organization works to clearly articulate his main argument and his use of footnotes, rather than endnotes, enables the reader to conveniently check and cross-reference his sources and his commentary on them. Holton’s footnoted discussion of the historiography features some of his strongest analysis of both his sources and his role in the discussion. In the text, he often takes for granted the gentry’s assumptions of lower classes, but, in the footnotes, he offers further evidence that would have bolstered his argument. Despite these critiques, Forced Founders contributes a valuable perspective to the role of the Chesapeake in the American Revolution.

I have been fascinated with Abigail Adams for years and really enjoyed this book. One thing about reading it on the Kindle is it seemed to take forever to read! I would read and see that I had only read 2% of the book. I was nearing 62% and was reading about her death and wondered what the rest of the 40% was going to be about when the book ended. The last 38% was footnotes, acknowledgements, sources and so forth. I clicked through all of them so my book would show 100%, otherwise, in a few months I would see that I had only read 62% of the book and wonder why I hadn't finished it!

Holton offers a backstory to the drive by Virginia's elite political leaders to support rebellion against England and the Declaration of Independence. He argues that Indians, slaves, merchants and small farmers, each in their own sphere, exerted influence on Washington, Jefferson and other Virginia leaders that helped to motivate their advocacy for independence.

Holton provides rich detail as he explores the obvious and not-so-obvious relationships of these interest groups, and as he describes the not wholly successful effort of the powerful landowners (in many cases, they were also land speculators) to achieve and expand their control of the factors of production: land, capital and labor.

Holton is at his most persuasive when he details circumstances in which the interests of the elites were more or less congruent with the interests of the generally disenfranchised but nevertheless potent subordinate classes who occupied their colonial world. This book supports and enlarges our understanding that the so-called Founding Fathers were not a monolithic group motivated simply by patriotic fervor for independence.
Read more on my blog: http://barleyliterate.blogspot.com/

This book is nicely researched and well written. A family tree might have been a nice addition, since the Adams family reproduces widely and everyone seems to have the same names. Holton pushes the feminist angle pretty strongly (Adams is well known for her "Remember the Ladies!" letter to her husband), and while Adams certainly displayed a lifelong interest in the rights and education of women, I think he sometimes holds her relationship with John up as more unusually egalitarian than it really was. Most of all, you get a real sense for the every day life of the period -- the problems that distance (even what now seems like a small distance) put on communication; the parallels between the federalists / anti-federalists and today's politicians; the economy crippling speculation and real estate bubbles after the war; and a truly moving exchange when Abigail's daughter finds a lump in her breast and has to be convinced to get a mastectomy. I'm very glad I had a chance to read this book.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2011/06/abigail-adams-by-woody-holton-2009.html ]½

Much emphasis is rightly given to the founding fathers of America such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. But rarely do we get such a detailed glimpse into the homes and personal lives of these men as we do the Adams' in Woody Holton's biography of Abigail Adams. With riveting detail, Holton introduces us to the complex woman who helped shaped America more than perhaps any other of the "founding mothers" through her influence on her husband.

Strong-willed, intelligent and willing to speak her mind, Adams was decades ahead of her time when it came to women's rights and involvement in the everyday affairs of life and politics. Relying heavily on Adams' correspondence between her husband and others, Holton places much emphasis on Adams as an advocate of women's rights. We glimpse the struggles that the Adams family endured through the many long absences of John Adams; but through these struggles we also get to see Abigail's knowledge and fortitude in being able to "keep the home fires burning" as it were. In a culture that frowned on educating women, she was very intelligent, widely read, and very active in promoting the education of her gender. She made financial investments often without the knowledge of her husband - also a cultural taboo.

Holton does an excellent job of highlighting Adams' strengths as well as her weaknesses, giving us a well-rounded, quite readable biography of this great woman. He certainly does Adams justice in examining her life as a woman and not simply as the wife of a founding father. I would highly recommend this book to any reader of American history or of women's rights.

Dry, but very informative perspective of the politics of the Revolutionary War era from the common peoples point of view in Virginia. Holton has managed to create an important and previously unrepresented piece of history. The most intriguing section to me was about Lord Dunmore and his emancipation of the slaves if they fought for Britain and the "coincidental" stealing of the gunpowder from the magazine in Williamsburg. Holton provides alternative motive, more of a symbolic (and threatening) gesture to the colonists than what general history has taught us. Interesting.½

Solid historical reference. Great personal history of Abigail regarding women's issues, family, financial/political perspective. I wish that either I knew more about her husband John, or that the book dealt with it so that I had a more complete picture.

I'm acknowledged in this book, so I can't really "review" it as such; consider this a hearty recommendation. It's one of the best biographies I've ever had the privilege to read, being at once pleasantly readable and also carefully researched. It breaks much new ground in pointing out the important role Abigail's financial prowess played in creating the family's fiscal stability: "it may be that if [John Adams'] financial records had survived the ravages of time as well as his correspondence did," Holton writes on p. 277, "they would show his wife making a larger contribution to the family's wealth than he did." A remarkable statement, perhaps, but not if you know Abigail as Holton reveals her.

Absolutely one of the top biographies of 2009, by far.

In Unruly Americans and the Making of the Constitution (Hill and Wang, 2007), Woody Holton continues a trend be began in his first book, Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (1999), examining how "ordinary" Americans impacted "great events".

At the outset, Holton rejects the so-called "ideological interpretation" of the Constitution's roots, taking the alternative view that the impetus behind the Philadelphia Convention were chiefly economic. At times he seems to flirt with Beardism, but never quite gets there - instead of ascribing purely cynical motives to the Framers, Holton's interpretation grants that they were "motivated by a sense of grievance that was genuine and questionable at the same time" (p. 87).
Holton is fond of the kind of overarching blanket statements that I find just as troubling in my own writing as I do in that of others. Of James Madison, Holton says, "More than anything else, it was the desire to overturn state laws that set him on the road to Philadelphia" (p. 7). "No piece of legislation - at either the state or federal level - did more to advance the movement for the Constitution" than a 1785 congressional requisition for $3 million (p. 66). And then there's Holton's conclusion that "Rhode Islanders, quite inadvertently, did more to boost the momentum for the Constitution than their counterparts in any other state" (p. 77). These statements many all be true (to some extent), but I'm reluctant to accept such strong statements without much more evidence.

One of the most salient points from this book is, ironically, one of those which Holton could have made rather more strongly. In Chapter 12, as he discusses the constitutional provisions designed to insulate the federal government from popular influence, he notes the many additional "antidemocratic" proposals which were discussed and rejected by the Framers because they diminished the chances that the states would ratify the the Constitution. These decisions, he writes, "were compromises between the Framers and the American people" (p. 211).

Holton's concerns being primarily economic, there is much detail here on the debates over paper money, bond speculation, debt assumption, taxes and other financial matters. The research is impressive and the writing clear, but it is very difficult to make such issues particularly engrossing except to the most committed reader. I had to take this book quite slowly to make sure I didn't miss anything hidden within the dense chapters on monetary policy. Nonetheless, Holton's managed to find some interesting sources (including Abigail Adams as bond speculator and the very odd Herman Husbands, who seemed to weigh in on just about everything), and used them well.

I simply cannot share Holton's overall conclusions about the Constitution, which he says contains "insidious ... safeguards against grassroots pressure" (p. 273). I do not believe that the Framers intended their government as a "slur on the capacities of ordinary citizens" (p. 278), because I don't believe they could have ever imagined how long their Constitution would last and the changes America and the world have seen since 1787. I do believe there was significantly more at play in Philadelphia than economic concerns; though those certainly had some effect, I'm unwilling to grant them the primacy Holton does.

A well-written book, and I recommend it highly even though I have reservations about its message.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2007/11/book-review-unruly-americans.html½

An interesting analysis of pre-Revolutionary Virginia; Holton argues that many of the "elites" who we now consider leaders of the Revolutionary movement were in fact pushed there through the actions of slaves, smallholders, and Indians. Not entirely convincing, and I didn't think Holton gave enough credit to ideological and other factors. But a very good book nonetheless.½