Details
Synopsis
David McCullough is known for his scholarly yet readable accounts of historical events and people's lives. Fans of his biography of John Adams will find the same narrative skill in 1776, his history of the first year of the America's war for independence from Britain. General Washington is at the center of this history, but important too are the citizen-soldiers of the Continental Army, who seemed at first to be at a disadvantage compared to the well-trained and equipped British led by General Howe. Luck and pluck and good old American know-how helped even the odds, but the first year was a struggle. The difficult terrain and the weather affected all the troops, and there were victories and defeats on both sides. In his compellingly fresh accounts of important battles such as the Siege of Boston and the Battle for Brooklyn, McCullough takes familiar events of classroom history and makes them new. Includes maps, drawings, letters, and portraits in black-and-white and in color. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2005.
| Size | | Length: | 386 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 20.0 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "On the afternoon of Thursday, October 26, 1775, His Royal Majesty George III, King of England, rode in royal splendor from St. James's Palace to the palace of Westminster, there to address the opening of Parliament on the increasingly distressing issue of war in America."
Industry Reviews
"Simply put, this is history writing at its best from one of its top practitioners."
Publishers Weekly (02/21/2005)
"[A] lucid and lively work that will engage both Revolutionary War bores and general readers who have avoided the subject since their school days....McCullough deftly sketches characters with a few quotations and details, humanizing a cast of thousands....A stirring and timely work, reminding us its soldiers rather than 'tavern patriots and windy politicians' who have always paid the price of American idealism and determined its successes."
New York Times Book Review - Tony Horwitz (05/22/2005)
"This is history at the ground level, sometimes even a few inches below. There is squishing mud for soldiers to trudge through, letters about absent loved ones and heartbreaking deaths, driving snow, and battlefields tipped with sun-gleaming bayonets like so many teeth grasping for prey. The prose is vibrant, and there is a telling insight into each character....But the book is essentially a portrait of the Continental Army's commander."
New Yorker - Joshua Micah Marshall (05/23/2005)
"1776 is vintage McCullough; colorful, eloquent and illuminating. In reconstructing that epic year in the life of the American Revolution, he has given us a fresh portrait of Washington himself."
Newsweek - Jon Meacham (05/23/2005)
"David McCullough writes with confidence, panache and authority, deftly mingling high strategy and low politics, with gripes and grumbles of redcoat and rebel alike. Although written with a natural American bias, his book strives (and it usually succeeds) to be fair to both sides. I recommend it unreservedly."
Literary Review - Nigel Jones (06/01/2005)
"[W]hereas many academic historians find it difficult to manage the elusive transmutation of raw archival material into compelling stories peopled by vivid, realistic personalities, McCullough has the imaginative capacity to reconstitute the inner lives of the long dead."
London Review of Books - Colin Kidd (11/17/2005)
"McCullough recounts the events of 1776 as if they had never been told before, with a freshness that brings home the drama and the sheer improbability of the events on which the U.S. is founded."
Time - Lev Grossman (12/26/2005)
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