Rebels Rising
Cities and the American Revolution
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- $38.99
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- $38.99
Publisher Description
The cities of eighteenth-century America packed together tens of thousands of colonists, who met each other in back rooms and plotted political tactics, debated the issues of the day in taverns, and mingled together on the wharves or in the streets. In this fascinating work, historian Benjamin L. Carp shows how these various urban meeting places provided the tinder and spark for the American Revolution.
Carp focuses closely on political activity in colonial America's five most populous cities--in particular, he examines Boston's waterfront community, New York tavern-goers, Newport congregations, Charleston's elite patriarchy, and the common people who gathered outside Philadelphia's State House. He shows how--because of their tight concentrations of people and diverse mixture of inhabitants--the largest cities offered fertile ground for political consciousness, political persuasion, and political action. The book traces how everyday interactions in taverns, wharves, and elsewhere slowly developed into more serious political activity. Ultimately, the residents of cities became the first to voice their discontent. Merchants began meeting to discuss the repercussions of new laws, printers fired up provocative pamphlets, and protesters took to the streets. Indeed, the cities became the flashpoints for legislative protests, committee meetings, massive outdoor gatherings, newspaper harangues, boycotts, customs evasion, violence and riots--all of which laid the groundwork for war.
Ranging from 1740 to 1780, this groundbreaking work contributes significantly to our understanding of the American Revolution. By focusing on some of the most pivotal events of the eighteenth century as they unfolded in the most dynamic places in America, this book illuminates how city dwellers joined in various forms of political activity that helped make the Revolution possible.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The great cities of colonial America New York, Boston, Newport, Philadelphia and Charleston were in the forefront of revolutionary agitation before the War of Independence, but once the fighting began, says Carp (an assistant professor of history at Tufts), the politics of liberty moved to the countryside. The British concentrated on occupying the cities, centers of commerce and transport, in order to supply their army; the patriots reluctantly abandoned them so as to avoid being defeated in battle, and shifted their forces inland. It was no coincidence, then, that the most important American victories (Saratoga, Yorktown, Trenton and Cowpens) occurred away from the major population hubs. After the British defeat, some cities, like New York and Boston, went on to marvelous things, while others, such as Newport and Charleston, never quite recovered from their devastating occupation. Carp argues that political power shifted to the rural South as attitudes toward urban irreligion, culture, unrest and ethnic mixing soured. When the site of the new national capital was chosen, it was located on "a remote riverbank" midway between South and North. Carp's account of the forgotten cities that fomented the Revolution is intriguing and will be mainly of interest to readers looking for an alternate explanation of this most remarkable of rebellions.
