Today is the 242nd anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. I do not have any reviews of Benjamin Labaree's books as of yet, so I will celebrate with a review of a book that does deal with some of the people that played a role in the American Revolution in the Massachusetts area as well as others.
Alfred F. Young, Gary B. Nash,
and Ray Raphael. Revolutionary Founders:
Rebels, Radicals, and Reformers in the Making of a Nation. New York: Alfred
A Knopf, 2011. 452 pp.
Most
Americans have a general idea of what the American Revolution was regardless of
whether or not they understand the fine details of how it began and what
followed afterwards. Few Americans know the men and women they will encounter
in reading this collection of twenty-two essays penned by many of the leading
historians of this period. In many ways these individuals had just as great a
role in the founding of the US as the men who most consider to be Founders such
as John Adams, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin. Although they are
hardly known to the people of today, these individuals were the ones who helped
start the Revolution, sustain it during the long years of combat, and determine
the future direction of the new nation.
The late
Alfred F. Young, esteemed historian from Northern Illinois University begins
the book with an essay on Ebenezer Mackintosh, the leader of the mobs that
resisted the Stamp Act in 1765 in the streets of Boston. The tone of the book
is set by this essay as Young explores the role of the common people in the
Revolution. Without the support of the people there would have been no
Revolution and no United States created in 1776. Yet, the people were not
united in their actions nor were the men who are remembered as Founders on the
national and state levels. In many cases the actions of the people led those
men into supporting the Revolution. Unfortunately the common men would be
forgotten or marginalized by the more well known men who took over the reins of
the revolutionary effort.
Men like
Ebenezer Mackintosh, Timothy Bigelow, and Joseph Plumb Martin along with black
men and women both free and enslaved played prominent roles in their part of
the Revolution along with Native Americans. All levels of colonial society was
affected by the events that took place and despite the attempts by many to
prevent change on a large scale, social, political, economic, cultural, and
even religious change occurred on a massive level as the Revolution set the
former British colonies on a different tangent than the home country. In
reading these essays the reader can begin to develop an inkling of why
historians like Gordon Wood think the period of the greatest change in the US
came after the Revolution during the years of the Early Republic era. 
These are
certainly not all of the legions of forgotten patriots who put everything on
the line during these years. If there is a drawback to this book it is that it
doesn’t weave the essays into a grand narrative of US history although after
each essay there is a section for further reading detailing additional sources
to explore regarding the events and people brought up in that particular essay.
What is interesting is that each historian has their own input on what was
going on concerning the subject their essay was about so that the reader will
begin to understand there are still many differing opinions on what exactly was
going on in that time and how the individuals portrayed in that essay were both
reacting to and participating in it. 
For readers
more familiar with the short topic form of literature the length of the essays
here will fit them perfectly. They average 15 to 20 pages each and are compact
enough to provide useful readings for both high school and college courses in
addition to local historical society meetings. Even social organizations would
find something to like in these essays. The essay by Richard S. Newman covers
Prince Hall and the founding of Prince Hall Freemasonry in the United States
which just naturally impels the reader to look up more information on that
subject.
The essays
that deal with events following the Revolution are poignant in that they cover
subjects which have been debated throughout our nation’s history such as
taxation, the unequal distribution of wealth, religion, the relationship
between federal and state government, and the role of the people within both
the state and federal governments. The reader should begin to understand that
these essays deal with a time that is lost to the modern world and was experiencing
massive upheavals in every aspect of life from top to bottom as the people
began the world over again as Thomas Paine said. The men and women in these
essays were the ones that helped bring that event about as well as determining
the shape of things to come for their posterity.
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