Norton's 1774: the Long Year of Revolution

 Mary Beth Norton published this book in 2020,  Reading it in the light of the 1619 Project and our current partisanship makes it particularly interesting.  

Tidbits:

She defines a "long 1774", essentially starting with the Boston Tea Party (December 1773) and ending with Concord and Lexington in April 1775.

Different communities reacted differently to the importation of tea by the East India Company--the Tea Party was the most extreme among the ports (NYC, Philadelphia, Charleston) in that property was destroyed.+

Gadsden writes from SC that the colony is weakened by its high proportion of enslaved blacks--makes them indecisive in responding to the Boston Tea Party and the Boston Port Act (the first UK response to the party).

The activist faction used tactics to manipulate the results.

"Patriotic terrorism" was a thing in 1774. The "woke" were sometimes successful in silencing their opponents, those who disagreed with nonimportation and possibly nonexportation agreements to protest the "Coercive Acts" punishing Massachusetts for the destruction of tea in the Boston Tea Party.

Much of the dynamic seems to be a recognition that all the colonies needed to act together, hence the first Continental Congress and the "Continental Association"

There was a ratchet effect, each big event pushed the sides further apart. In America the progression cemented unity among the colonies and a sense of being a separate country.  Americans might have accepted a revised status similar to that achieved by Canada and Australia in the next century but neither side was able to offer concessions which could have initiated such negotiations.

Within America there was a splitting, as some came to recognize themselves as "Loyalists" and others as committed to the "Patriot" cause, even at the risk of civil war. As the book progressed the reactions of the players seemed similar to those we have seen recently.  As the Patriots coalesced they tend to unite around stronger positions much as the way progressive Democrats have emerged and coalesced since the days of euphoria over Obama's election.

If the Bill of Rights had been in effect in 1774 the Patriots would have violated many of its provisions. Assessing them it seems they followed the rule: look at what we say, disregard what we did.

The British government was receiving reports from the Netherlands and elsewhere of Americans buying arms and gunpowder to smuggle into America.  They took steps to intercept such shipments and pressured the Dutch government to block such sales.  Norton describes these reports but doesn't offer any description of the background--were these individual entrepreneurs acting out of fear of war, much as today people go to the gun store when alarmed, or hope of profit, or were some acting as agents for people in the legislative bodies attempting to speak for the colonies (some improvised conventions, some the colonial assemblies)? Likely there's little documentation to provide such background. 

Although Amazon reviews have criticized the writing as dull, I liked it--it's well done scholarship.