A meaty, methodical exploration of a crucial American founding stronghold.
A historian thoroughly scours the record to resurrect the history of a well-intentioned ideal society that was ultimately “undermined by fatal flaws.”
Unlike many of the doomed early American experiments at colonization, such as Walter Raleigh’s “lost” Roanoke Colony and other failures in Newfoundland, Boston—created to escape “the imperial decay and religious persecution that threatened England’s government and church”—succeeded, both as a center of Atlantic Puritanism as well as a trading hub. Created by a charter issued by King Charles I in 1629, the “city-state” of Boston, writes Peterson (History/Yale Univ.; The Price of Redemption: The Spiritual Economy of Puritan New England, 1997), was founded as a “self-conscious attempt to build an autonomous self-governing republic modeled on biblical and classical republican ideals in a New World environment.” Though silver and gold were not discovered nearby, furs and codfish took their place and were entirely exploited due to a judicious bartering with the Native inhabitants, who, unlike the early settlers, were hunters and fishers. When these commodities became scarce and the economy in relation to English trade tanked, the enterprising Bostonians looked to the Caribbean colonies, where sugar production was booming. They began building their own ships, and slaves were imported by the mid-17th century. Sustaining Indian wars and Atlantic trade competition, Boston emerged from being a “backwater, a bystander in the puritan crusade against the Spanish foe, into a new transatlantic center of colonization to which other plantations looked for assistance.” From there, Boston exerted its unique position by issuing its own coins, extending its territorial reach, and “fending off the crown’s agents.” Through specific historical personages such as John Adams and African-American poet Phillis Wheatley and chapters framed on biblical allusions (“The Selling of Joseph”), Peterson leads us through the city’s Enlightenment ideals and how they clashed with the city’s links to the American South’s slave-driven economy.
A meaty, methodical exploration of a crucial American founding stronghold.Pub Date: March 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-691-17999-5
Page Count: 832
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.
A master storyteller’s character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution.
Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he “could march from one end of the American continent to the other.” Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women’s work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans’ military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers “who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins” at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general—not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world’s highest standard of living in 1776.
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-2671-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
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PERSPECTIVES
A welcome addition to the literature on immigration told by an author who understands the issue like few others.
The debut book from “one of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard.”
In addition to delivering memorable portraits of undocumented immigrants residing precariously on Staten Island and in Miami, Cleveland, Flint, and New Haven, Cornejo Villavicencio, now enrolled in the American Studies doctorate program at Yale, shares her own Ecuadorian family story (she came to the U.S. at age 5) and her anger at the exploitation of hardworking immigrants in the U.S. Because the author fully comprehends the perils of undocumented immigrants speaking to journalist, she wisely built trust slowly with her subjects. Her own undocumented status helped the cause, as did her Spanish fluency. Still, she protects those who talked to her by changing their names and other personal information. Consequently, readers must trust implicitly that the author doesn’t invent or embellish. But as she notes, “this book is not a traditional nonfiction book….I took notes by hand during interviews and after the book was finished, I destroyed those notes.” Recounting her travels to the sites where undocumented women, men, and children struggle to live above the poverty line, she reports her findings in compelling, often heart-wrenching vignettes. Cornejo Villavicencio clearly shows how employers often cheat day laborers out of hard-earned wages, and policymakers and law enforcement agents exist primarily to harm rather than assist immigrants who look and speak differently. Often, cruelty arrives not only in economic terms, but also via verbal slurs and even violence. Throughout the narrative, the author explores her own psychological struggles, including her relationships with her parents, who are considered “illegal” in the nation where they have worked hard and tried to become model residents. In some of the most deeply revealing passages, Cornejo Villavicencio chronicles her struggles reconciling her desire to help undocumented children with the knowledge that she does not want "kids of my own." Ultimately, the author’s candor about herself removes worries about the credibility of her stories.
A welcome addition to the literature on immigration told by an author who understands the issue like few others.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-399-59268-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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