The Minutemen and Their World (American Century Series)
Label: Hill and Wang
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Hill and Wang
Studio: Hill and Wang
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Winner of the Bancroft Prize
The Minutemen and Their World, first published in 1976, is reissued now in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a new Foreword by Alan Taylor and a new Afterword by the author.
On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The "shot heard round the world" catapulted this sleepy New England town into the midst of revolutionary fervor, and Concord went on to become the intellectual capital of the new republic. The town--future home to Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne--soon came to symbolize devotion to liberty, intellectual freedom, and the stubborn integrity of rural life. In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place, and a compelling interpretation of the American Revolution as a social movement.
Customer Reviews
Book Review
The following is my book review for a history class. It is far from perfect but perhaps can help you start your own critical analysis.
The book tells an unconventional story of the American Revolution by analyzing the ordinary city of Concord, Massachusetts as a microcosm of colonial America. Gross argues that the struggle for independence from Britain was not a revolution but a conservative social struggle - a struggle with patriarchal control, religious zealotry, individualism, and localized control of government.
The first point of contention in Concord was unequal representation attributed to citizen's proximity to the town meeting hall - those who were physically closer dominated public opinion and policy. The town would also struggle with church and state - ministers were subsidized by the town and it was not possible to keep each citizen happy with the majority's choice. Local representation was another source of disagreement - the mid-eighteenth century government was influenced by (if not controlled from) England, an ocean away. Representation was worsened when the British levied heavy taxes to finance the Seven Years War. The popular majority fought against the colonial government who favored the hand that empowered them, if not fed them. Primary documents note the latter: "there is no greater...corruption...than when...executive officers depend...on a power independent of the people".
In the afterword, Gross explains his left-leaning ideological influences and how they shaped the topic of his research, his approach, and conclusions. Gross uses historical public records to tell a story, attributing emotion and motivation to statistical trends. Personalizing quantitative data will naturally have a bias, but Gross manages to keep from overwhelming the reader with his own conclusions by letting the reader draw his own. Academics have used Gross's work to compare Vietnam to the American Revolution - Gross acknowledges the idea but leaves it out of the main text.
The most compelling argument Gross makes demonstrates the loss of patriarchal control in Concord, and presumably across the colonies. He describes how sons rely on fathers for land, and daughters rely on fathers for dowries. As the economic climate changes, dowries are reduced, local fertile land becomes scarce and grown children have incentives to leave the family to pursue the frontier. This costs the father his source of labor (as slavery was not the dominant labor in Massachusetts) and costs the children the source of inheritance and stability.
Gross approaches each argument in a similar manner - he tells a personal story backed by quantitative research. In the patriarchy argument he tells of the emigration of Purchase Brown, unable to sustain himself on his father's meager farm. Quantitatively, Gross notes that 1 in every 4 taxpayers moved away from Concord in every decade from the 1740s onward.
The Minutemen and Their World was revolutionary in personalizing a Revolution. The author stretched historical records and statistics into a compelling narrative of people both average and great. The arguments are solid because of the heavy quantitative research, but even the author wonders "if the Minutemen would recognize themselves in my mirror". The author added to the understanding of the Revolution by adding intricate personal detail and motivations to all of Concord's citizens - memorable men, but also poor men, widows, spinsters, ministers, blacks, farmers, blacksmiths, intellectuals, substitutes, and dissenters.
a pleasure to read? absolutely
I agree wholeheartedly with editorial reviewer David Hackett Fisher. This book reads almost like a novel, and yet it is a work of history--with solid research and scholarship, at that.
Gross argues that the Revolution provided Concord an opportunity to re-assert control over the community and its destiny. In the years preceding 1775-1776, great changes were sweeping across the colonies, particularly in traditional New England towns like Concord. For example, there was the problem of decreasing supplies of land, and fathers, with sometimes large numbers of sons, had difficulty providing for all his heirs (without dividing the land and, hence, making it less sustainable). Other issues were occurring specifically in Concord--such as the desire of its residents farther from the town to hire their own minister. So threatened, Concord was experiencing not just stasis but actual decline in these pre-Revolution years.
Therefore, with all these fluctuations and challenges, participation in the Revolution offered Concord a chance to seize initiative and regain control over its political and communal life, to restore its autonomy. Gross writes, "The men of 1775 had not gone to war to promote change but to stop it."
Brilliantly Written, Brilliantly Boring
For a freshman history class in college, I had to read Robert Gross' The Minutemen and Their World. I thought it would be an engaging book about the lives of the Minutemen of the Revolutionary War period. It was more about the life of residents of Concord Massachusetts and how it was before, during, and after the American Revolution. Gross thoroughly researched the facts for this book - I have no doubt of that. It is intricate enough to include the particulars of the lives of individuals living in Concord as well as the overall sentiments of the town (and other Massachusetts towns/villages).
Filled with many facts, this book is great if you have an interest in such a thing. However, it is a most dry read in that it is in this general layout:
Fact, fact, information on a particular Concordian, fact, fact, fact
The bottom line: This book is great for researching life in Concord/Massachusetts. However, it's not very good for being an exciting read.
Tons of information if you don't fall asleep
Why did I hate this book? Because it was so dry I had to read it in the shower so I didn?t get dehydrated. In all seriousness this book was a pain to read and I found myself contemplating whether or not to jump out my window and end it all. The Minutemen and Their World is an in depth look at the town of Concord, Massachusetts during the American revolutionary period. Despite its title, it has almost nothing to do with the actual minutemen, instead focusing on the different aspects of life in Concord and how they were affected by the revolution. There were some good points to the book, the foremost being that it is chock full o information. Looking for information on what life was like in Massachusetts before, during and after the revolution? This is the book for you as long as you are looking for pure facts. The huge amount of factual information crammed into its pages is the main reason I disliked the book so much. Gross packs so much information into his book that it makes actually enjoying the book virtually impossible. He does delve deeply into the economic, social, religious and political aspects of Concord and by the end of the book the reader is quite familiar with what life in Concord was like back then. If he didn?t bore you to death, this would be a great read.
To sum it all up: Looking for a plethora of facts? Read this book. Looking for something to entertain and educate you at the same time? Read something else.
too many Minutes Man!
If you could get through the first few sentences of this book without yawning, then this book is for you. In this book, Robert Gross explains the life of a town before, during, and after the American Revolution. I do admit that this book wasn't a page tuner, but once I got into it, after about 171 pages, it became quite good. As soon as the Gross started talking about the years following the American Revolution, it became quite interesting. Gross explained the social world, in how, people came together and worked as a whole to make life better for everyone. In conclusion, this book was mostly dry but full of detail.
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