Book Review: 1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton

1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is a fifteen-month period in the history of North American that changed it forever, during that time British colonists went from being dominated by moderates to dividing to the extremes with bloody consequences. 1774: The Long Year of Revolution by Mary Beth Norton covers the period from December 1773 to April 1775 in which colonists separated into Whigs and Tories, aka Loyalists.

Over the course of 344 of text, Norton shows the reactions to a tax on tea and Parliament giving the East India Company direct access to colonial market which led to the final crisis between the colonies and Britain as well a break amongst the patriot colonists themselves when congresses and committees begin to be formed. As a longtime researcher of American Loyalists and Women, respectfully, during the Revolutionary era, Norton brings those elements as well as those well known to general history readers to give great context to this time in Colonial American history that doesn’t get a real in-depth look in histories that cover the period between 1763-1789 given everything that happened. Norton not only deals with what is happening in America, but real times events in Britain—as well as Europe as the year progresses—to show how events happening simultaneously or in reaction to previous events come at the point when debate or discussions have moved on thus showing how this crisis spiraled until bloodshed was inevitable. Overall, this book shows how the events of April 1775 became inevitable when just a year before they were unimaginable.

1774 is an insightful, in-depth history for general history readers as well as those interested in specialized. Mary Beth Norton is an accomplished historian that is well-written and very thorough in her research giving the reader confidence in what they read.

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Book Review: A New Age Now Begins (Volume One) by Page Smith

A New Age Now Begins: A People's History of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 by Page Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The American Revolution began long before 1775, in fact the British colonists were technically rebelling in 1765 however during that decade the ‘American’ consciousness began. A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution (Volume One) is the first of two books by Page Smith covering American Revolution as well as his American history series, A People’s History, in which he reveals how British colonists transformed into Americans.

Smith just doesn’t deal with the American Revolution with the immediate lead up but goes into the origins of each of the 13 colonies and their development in broad terms both internally but in relation to each other before 1763. The period between 1763 to the outbreak of armed conflict in 1775 covers a little over a third of the book as the British Parliament and colonists butted heads over taxes that brought the once selfish colonies closer together and the populace went from thinking of themselves as British to something new, Americans. The military phase of the Revolution takes up just under half of the rest of the volume and through just after the Trenton-Princeton campaign, but with several political developments like how the new states developed constitutions that would have implications later. This volume ends at page 872—with Volume Two continuing the page count—throughout which is a lot of information, but one of critiques I had was that there were no footnotes or bibliography until I glanced at Volume Two in which Page addressed the lack of footnotes—extending the length of an already large history, finding them personally pretentious, and including the sources within the text when quoting or revealing what an individual thought—and while an answer to my main critique, there is still a little doubt that affects my overall view of this very interesting history.

A New Age Now Begins (Volume One) is the first of a double volume history of the American Revolution with this dealing with the founding of colonies through the darkest hour of a young nation.

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Book Review: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

His life is an allegory for the post-colonial history of his homeland, but is it real? is he insane? is he suffering from PTSD? Yes. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie follows the life of man born at the exact moment that India became an independent nation-state and how his life reflected that of the nation.

Rushdie writes the book from the perspective of its protagonist, Saleem Sinai, whose origins are as muddled as that of the nation itself at the time of independence. Throughout the book, the magical elements of Saleem’s familial—hereditary attributes and emotional pollution—and personal life are related by the character himself but instead of simply not mentioning the illogicalness of this Saleem addresses these magical connections directly at several points. As I said above Saleem’s life mirrors that of India’s from its independence in 1947 through the 1980s even though he himself doesn’t stay in India the entire time—living in Pakistan almost a decade until the Bangladesh Independence War of 1971—but that doesn’t stop their connection. Unlike Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, this magical realism novel kept me engaged throughout whether because Rushdie’s actual references to historical events compared to Allende’s allusions to Chilean history thus getting to the history addict in me or simply me liking Rushdie’s writing style over Allende’s. Not only was this Rushdie’s first novel, but it was also my first exposure to his writing, and it makes me interested in others of his work.

Midnight’s Children is an engaging read of how not only a nation, but individuals related to the end of the British Raj and an independent nations early history handled the chan

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Book Review: Rousseau and Revolution by Will & Ariel Durant

The Story of Civilization, Part X: Rousseau and Revolution by Will Durant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If Voltaire was the embodiment of rationalist philosophers looking to bring reason to government and society then Rousseau was the embodiment of Romantic impulse for self-exploration and social revolt, they lived at the same time and died the same year without known their two visions would influence Europe’s most famous Revolution. Rousseau and Revolution is the tenth—the planned concluding but eventually penultimate—volume of The Story of Civilization by Will Durant and for the fourth time joined by wife Ariel Durant which reveals how Jean-Jacques Rousseau brought forth the Romantic counterpoint to Voltaire’s Enlightenment and how it played into the development of Europe in the late 18th century.

Unlike the previous volume, Rousseau is not as prominent throughout but his influence if felt as the chronology of the various parts of Europe are covered politically and culturally especially as the underpinnings of the Romantic movement begin appearing. The decline and fall of the French Ancien régime bookend the volume as Durant signals the fall of the absolute monarchy with Louis XVI putting the cockade of the Revolution on his hat, yet the history behind the collapse is and how each Estate had a ‘revolution’ of their own before being overtaken by the next until that moment. Between the rest of Europe is covered either from where they were politically and culturally left off in either of the last two volumes. As the Durants originally planned that this would be the final volume of the series, they ignored their 1789 ending point to finish out the lives of various individuals and take a glance at various movements—political and cultural—that began in the focused-on decades, and they did not believe they would fully cover. If this had been the final volume as planned it was a good ending to the overall series, but with another volume to go it will be interesting how the Durants write it given how they wrote this one.

Rousseau and Revolution finds Will and Ariel Durant revealing the countering of Voltaire’s emotionless rationalism in Jean-Jacque Rousseau as well as the consequences of his undermining of the Church that help prop up the absolute monarchy leading to the latter’s fall.

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Book Review: Exploring Mark: A Devotional Commentary by George R. Knight

Exploring Mark: A Devotional Commentary by George R. Knight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is most likely the first gospel written and was aimed at Roman Christians during the persecutions of Nero by a follower of Christ in his youth. Exploring Mark: A Devotional Commentary by George R. Knight reveals that why the other Gospels focus on Jesus’ teachings it is Mark shows He is a Man of Action.

Knight divides his study of Mark into 61 segments allowing him to not only explain each passage within the context of the book, the other Gospels and other parts of the Bible, and providing commentary about what the passage means for us today. Throughout Knight brings out themes and threads that Mark sowed throughout his Gospel from showing Jesus doing things and not just teaching, to sandwiching stories in-between two parts of another, Jesus’ continual request to keep his messiahship secret (which comes into relevance at the end of the Gospel), and finally the continual failure of Jesus’ followers to either understand, believe, or to take action which everyone one of us can relate to. As with other books in Knight’s Devotional Commentary series, context of the time of writing gives greater a clearer understanding to Jesus’ teachings and action that gives to us today the same blessing that those 1st-Century Roman Christians received in their time of need.

Exploring Mark is an excellent commentary and devotional by George R. Knight, who gives insight into the shortest and most like the earliest Gospel for the 21st Century.

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Book Review: The Book of Mark by Thomas R. Shepherd

The Book Of Mark by Thomas R. Shepherd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It was written for the Christians in Rome during Nero’s persecution and this good news turned out to be the first of four that would reveal the life of Jesus to originally different audiences but collectively for all believers. The Book of Mark is the supplemental book of Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide (3rd Quarter 2024) by Thomas R. Shepherd reveals a striking, forthright, and powerful Jesus in the first evangelist’s gospel. Throughout the book Shepherd reveals the significance of “sandwich” stories, brings to the forefront a revelation-secrecy motif that reoccurs through the gospel, and emphasizes how Jesus’ authority comes into conflict with the religious leaders of the day through 13 chapters that cover the gospel from start to finish. I would highly recommend this 128-page book as a companion piece if one is studying Mark’s Gospel on your own.

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Book Review: A Struggle for Power by Theodore Draper

A Struggle for Power: The American Revolution by Theodore Draper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So how did the relationship between Great Britain and the British American colonies deteriorate into war in a little over a decade after securing a huge victory over France that secured them everything east of the Mississippi and all of Canada? The Struggle for Power: The American Revolution by Theodore Draper details how ideological factors were the main cause of the American Revolution.

While Draper begins the book the debate occurring in Britain about whether to keep Canada or Guadeloupe after the end of the Seven Years’ War—aka French and Indian War—using the arguments that had begun during the Stuart restoration nearly a century before about how to keep the American colonies dependent on Britain. However, Draper showed that those old arguments had since been surpassed by the economic prowess of the American colonies and did not consider the political attitudes and realities of those colonies until it was too late. Throughout the book Draper illustrates that the American Revolution came down not to paying taxes, but who had the power to pass tax legislation and collect the money. Over the course of a little over 500 pages, Draper developed his case by not only American sources but those of the British as well, showing the ideological arguments over 12 years that eventually could only be settled in blood.

The Struggle for Power as a great look into the cause of the American Revolution by Theodore Draper, not only seeing it from the western side of the Atlantic but in the mother country too.

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