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Summary
Summary
This extensively researched and groundbreaking account by Sibert medalist Marc Aronson centers on events in the mid-18th century that enabled Americans to give up their loyalty to England and form their own nation. Shedding new light on familiar aspects of American history, such as the Boston Tea Party, and ending with the aftermath of the American Revolution, Aronson approaches the events that shaped our country from a fresh angle and connects them to issues that still exist in modern times. Also developed throughout is the pioneering idea that the struggle for American independence was actually part of a larger conflict that spanned the globe, reaching across Europe to India.
Packed with dramatic events, battles, and memorable figures such as George Washington and Tom Paine in America and Robert Clive in India, this insightful narrative provides a multi-layered portrait of how our nation came to be, while discovering anew the themes, images, and fascinating personalities that run through our entire history. Cast of characters, maps, endnotes and bibliography, Internet resources, timeline, index.
Author Notes
Marc Aronson is the award-winning author of a wide variety of nonfiction works for younger readers, including Sugar Changed the World and Sir Walter Ralegh and the Quest for El Dorado , which received the first Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award. He edits and publishes young adult fiction in a special arrangement with Candlewick and lives with his wife and two sons in Maplewood, New Jersey. Visit him at marcaronson.com.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-In this fascinating, insightful volume, Aronson investigates the origins of the American Revolution and discovers some startling global connections. The colonies' quest for independence is tied to such seemingly unrelated incidents as Robert Clive's triumph over the French in India in 1750 and John Wilkes's accusations against the king in his newspaper, The North Briton, in the 1760s. In his introduction, the author explains how remarks by John Adams helped him define the scope of his book: "`What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 to 1775.'" Employing a new approach called "transnational" history, Aronson demonstrates the evolution of the colonists from English subjects to an entirely new breed-Americans-and points out such ironies as the fact that slavery made it possible for wealthy Virginia squires to have the leisure to ponder the concept of freedom. The numerous illustrations include portraits, engravings, maps, reproductions of documents, and period political cartoons, which are explained for modern readers. Extensive endnotes, a lengthy bibliography, a list of Web sites, and a time line will encourage readers to explore history on their own. This outstanding work is highly compelling reading and belongs in every library.-Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Aronson's opening author's note explains that this title, together with two of his previous books (about John Winthrop and Oliver Cromwell, and about Sir Walter Ralegh) comprise "three acts in the unfolding saga of the period between the first English explorations of the New World and the birth of the United States." In what he calls a "transnational" approach to history, he frames the events of the American Revolution in the context of global economic and intellectual developments. Aronson then zeroes in on the Boston Tea Party ("why tea?") in a kind of microcosm of the forces at work, weaving together the history of the East India Company leading up to its financial crisis, the roles of Empire and colony and changing ideas of liberty. Aronson skillfully brings the personalities at the drama's center to life, most notably the well-born but cash-poor Robert Clive, who parlayed a minor job with the East India Company into a fortune and helped solidify an empire, but the narrative also offers new insight into George Washington. Aronson excels at making the material accessible, whether defining "mercantilism" or what it meant to become an American. Even the illustrations' captions are clever (e.g., one describing the unusual circumstances surrounding Samuel Adams and his portraitist). Unfortunately, the institutional design does little to serve the narrative. While the ending (connecting these events to Gandhi and the Civil Rights Movement) might feel a bit rushed, Aronson offers a timely and relevant interpretation of this chapter of history, its contradictions and its compromises. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) This engaging history, the conclusion of Aronson's dramatic and thought-provoking trilogy, tells the story of the events that led up to the American Revolution. Like other recent historians, he takes a global perspective, arguing that events in England and India were crucial to the development of American ideals of liberty and independence. He begins by focusing on three soldiers -- Robert Clive in India, George Washington in the Ohio Valley, and James Wolfe in Canada. In lively prose, he goes on to describe the conflicting views of English rules and American rights and, finally, the crisis that resulted from the need for the East India Company to sell its tea to pay its taxes and balance its books. A final chapter quickly, and less satisfactorily, connects the dots between the revolution, Indian independence, and the civil rights movement in the United States. Aronson makes unfamiliar information comprehensible through comparisons with the familiar: the East India Company as Microsoft; the colonies as a Starbucks franchise. Exemplary endnotes demonstrate to the high school reader why Aronson chose to tell the story as he did and where he found his information; careful captions include the illustrations' provenance and, usually, their date, and remind readers that pictorial matter can be fiction, too. Whether or not readers accept Aronson's historical thesis, they will come away with a better idea both of events in our history and of how historians work. The book includes an index, an extensive bibliography, a list of websites, and a helpful timeline. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 9-12. In another analysis of milestones in the formation of our country, Aronson traces a complex social, political, and economic dance that links consolidation of the British East India Company's power in India, the growing unrest in Britain's North American colonies, and the actions of a corrupt British Parliament. Quoting John Adams, he considers the Revolutionary War as an affect and consequence of the real, ideological revolution in America that planted the idea of independence, so he devotes just a few paragraphs to actual battles. He focuses instead on what, taking a transnational view, was actually a world war, which, paradoxically, George Washington inadvertently helped to start, but which also came about thanks to a failed Scottish banker, a famine in Bengal, and other occurrences in distant corners of the globe. Pulling Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. in at the end makes for a too-hasty close, but Aronson caps his study with notes as fascinating as his main story. Reserve this for serious students curious about who and what we are as a nation. --John Peters Copyright 2005 Booklist
