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Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord. In June, however, with the city cut off from supplies by a British blockade and Patriot militia poised in siege, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
(2013) I read this earlier this year and forgot to log it. Again the author has taken me into the time and place of his characters, all real. Also I learn of a forgotten figure who would have probably been our first president if he had not died as a result of the batttle. Very good.KIRKUS REVIEWNational Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Philbrick (Why Read Moby-Dick, 2011, etc.) will be a candidate for another award with this ingenious, bottom-up look at Boston from the time of the December 1773 Tea Party to the iconic June 1775 battle.Independence Day rhetoric extols our forefathers' battle for freedom against tyranny and unfair taxation, but the author points out that American colonists were the freest, most-prosperous and least-taxed subjects of the British Empire and perhaps the world. A century and a half of London's salutary neglect had resulted in 13 nearly independent colonies. Trouble began in the 1760s when Parliament attempted to tax them to help pay for the ruinously expensive victory in the French and Indian War. Unexpected opposition handled with spectacular clumsiness by Britain guaranteed trouble. Among Massachusetts' resistance leaders, most readers know John Hancock and Samuel Adams, but Philbrick concentrates on Joseph Warren, a charismatic young physician, unjustly neglected today since he died at Bunker Hill. His opposite number, British Gen. Thomas Gage, behaved with remarkable restraint. Despite warnings that it would take massive reinforcements to keep the peace, superiors in London goaded him into action, resulting in the disastrous April 1775 expedition to Lexington and Concord. They also sent a more pugnacious general, William Howe, who decided to expel colonial militias, now besieging Boston, by an uphill frontal attack on their entrenched lines, a foolish tactic. British forces succeeded but suffered massive casualties. It was the first and bloodiest engagement of the eight years of fighting that followed.A rewarding approach to a well-worn subject, rich in anecdotes, opinion, bloodshed and Byzantine political maneuvering.Pub Date:April 30th, 2013ISBN:978-0-670-02544-2Page count:400ppPublisher:VikingReview Posted Online:March 3rd, 2013Kirkus Reviews Issue:March 15th, 2013
Nathaniel Philbrickâs Bunker Hill is an excellent book on the early days of the American Revolution. It focuses on the period post the French and Indian War, including the Thomas Gage years being the Royal Governor of Massachusetts and being responsible for locking down Boston and enforcing the coercive acts and his eventual replacement by William Howe. Significant individuals on the American side are Dr. Joseph Warren , John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Church and George Washington, and Henry Knox.
The highlights of the book include Concord and Lexington, Bunker Hill, the besiegement of Boston, and the withdrawal of the British from Boston and the early days in the creation of a true Continental Army.
The book is short at only slightly over 300 pages and is a sold 4 star read on the early days of the Revolution. ( )
A well-written history of the battles of Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill and the siege of Boston, with a refreshingly objective view of the Patriots and the coming of the revolution. The author has insightful discussions about many of the principal characters including Joseph Warren, Thomas Gage and George Washington who, I shuddered to learn, was prepared to defy the advice of his various generals, invade Boston and, apparently, almost certainly destroy his army. GW was saved from his own folly by bad weather forestalling the Brit's attack on Dorchester Heights. Mr. Philbrick also points out the Patriot's hypocritical denunciation of their "slavery" to Britain, while thinking nothing of owning slaves themselves, and he has fascinating mention of the colonists' fear that the British soldiers would incite a slave rebellion. ( )
I listened to Bunker Hill and found it really interesting. Although in school the Revolutionary War is covered, I don't recall much of the details. Or that we learned details. I knew as most do that it started in New England, but this was a lot of interesting information about the war. It covers the whole start up to he battle itself. I liked the reader, which is always important. ( )
I was a bit disappointed in this work, particularly given the author's well-deserved popularity and my interest in the subject matter.
While I appreciate that substantial back story is necessary for the context of both Bunker Hill and the subsequent Siege of Boston, the author included too much minutiae along the way. Do we really need to know about Joseph Warren's mistress, the length of a Roman toga or the four humors theory of ancient medicine? In the big picture the approach detracts from main narrative.
Boston has been like the vision of Moses: a bush burning but not consumed. - the Reverend Samuel Cooper, April 7, 1776
Dedication
To my mother, Marianne Dennis Philbrick
First words
(Preface) On a hot, almost windless afternoon in June, a seven-year-old boy stood beside his mother and looked out across the green islands of Boston Harbor.
More than five thousand people waited inside the Old South Meeting-House, the largest gathering place in Boston.
Quotations
Liberty is all very well, but men cannot live without masters. There is always a master. And men either live in glad obedience to the master they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine. In America this frictional opposition has been the vital factor. It has given the Yankee his kick. - D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923
Last words
"Thus ends royal authority. . . ." Abigail wrote, "and all the people shall say Amen."
(Epilogue) "My life must be militant to the close," he wrote, and on that evening in June 1843, as he turned to walk back to the home he had inherited from his father, he was still spoiling for a fight.
Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord. In June, however, with the city cut off from supplies by a British blockade and Patriot militia poised in siege, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
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Lost too often in the story of our noble path to liberty is the truly cataclysmic nature of the nation's origins: the interplay of ideologies and personalities that provoked a group of merchants, farmers, artisans and sailors to take up arms against their own country. With his keen sense of the unexplored side of mythic events, Nathaniel Philbrick turns to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the gradual uptick of tension that climaxed in June of 1775 at Bunker Hill, in the firs major battle of the American Revolution.
Boston in 1775 was a city of 15,000 packed onto a land-connected island a little over one square mile. It was occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by colonists who ranged from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. For eighteen months after a feverish gang tossed boxes of surplus tea into Boston Harbor, citizens and soldiers warily maneuvered around each other, but on April 19, violence finally erupted at Lexington and Concord. Not until June, however, with a British-occupied city cut off from supplies by a patriot militia poised in siege, did the skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. A few hundred citizen soldiers had the bravery and the discipline to hold their fire until the British soldiers marched into within just fifteen yards of their entrenchment. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and was the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
Philbrick's account reflects a deep grasp of the fundamental truths of the American experience - our affinity for recklessness and violence alongside our individual and collective acts of courage in the face of tyranny. He brings a fresh perspective to every aspect of the story. The triumvirate long associated with revolutionary Boston - John Adams, Sam Adams and John Hancock - were far from the scene as the city erupted, so the real work of choreographing rebellion fell to a thirty-three-year-old physician named Joseph Warren, who emerged as the on-the-ground leader of the patriot cause and was fated to die at Bunker Hill.
Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren;s fiance, the poet Mercy Scollay; the reluctant British combatant General Thomas Gage and his moody successor, William Howe, who presided over the claustrophobic city under siege; and finally, a newly recruited George Washington, the immaculately dressed Virginian who found himself in the tumultuous void left by the death of Joseph Warren, and who transformed a collection of surly militiamen into the beginnings of an army.
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