Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Questions on Reading "Revolutionaries"

I've started reading Jack Rakove's "Revolutionaries,  A New History of the Invention of America".  It's not doing well on Amazon's ratings, except when you look at the one-stars you find people complaining, not about the book but about the Kindle price. So far I'd recommend it--it reads easily. I'm reasonably familiar with the period but it has triggered a couple questions/observations so far. 

  • I wasn't familiar with Edmund Burke's speech on conciliating the colonies--Rakove quotes enough that I've looked it up on line.
  • I wonder why none of the Canadian provinces attended the "First Continental Congress".  I grew up reading Kenneth Roberts, whose historical fiction included the attack on Quebec/Montreal led by Benedict Arnold and Gen. Montgomery, which was an attempt to get those northern provinces to join the revolution.
  • although Americans don't usually like having the national government exercise powers over individual citizens, that's exactly what the First CC did--establish local committees to enforce the boycott on British goods.

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