Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A deeply researched and bracing retelling (Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian) of the American Revolution, showing how the Founders were influenced by overlooked Americanswomen, Native Americans, African Americans, and religious dissenters.

Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a spirited account (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. It is all one story, prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes.

Holton describes the origins and crucial battles of the Revolution from Lexington and Concord to the British surrender at Yorktown, always focusing on marginalized Americansenslaved Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, women, and dissentersand on overlooked factors such as weather, North Americas unique geography, chance, misperception, attempts to manipulate public opinion, and (most of all) disease. Thousands of enslaved Americans exploited the chaos of war to obtain their own freedom, while others were given away as enlistment bounties to whites. Women provided material support for the troops, sewing clothes for soldiers and in some cases taking part in the fighting. Both sides courted native people and mimicked their tactics.

Liberty Is Sweet is a must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation (Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin), from its origins on the frontiers and in the Atlantic ports to the creation of the Constitution. Offering surprises at every turnfor example, Holton makes a convincing case that Britain never had a chance of winning the warthis majestic history revivifies a story we thought we already knew.

Reviews

"WithLiberty Is Sweet, Woody Holton once again troubles the mythical narratives of our founding and the hagiography of our 'founders' to reveal the dynamic, complicated and multiracial pressures that led to the creation of the United States.This book rightly decenters the almost exclusively white revolutionary narratives that we've all been taught and instead makes visible the influence and agency of Black and Indigenous people as well as white women, who together played such a critical, if erased, role in creating this multiracial nation. This book unsettles the reader in the best possible way, and shows once again how the simplistic histories of our founding fail to explain the divided country in which we all live." -- Nikole Hannah-Jones, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project
Liberty is Sweetis a deeply researched and bracing retelling of the origins of the American Revolution. Holton details the central role that European hunger for Indian land and the differing views on Indian policy between British officials and Anglo-American colonistsplayed in the crises that led to revolution. This persuasive and necessary account will challenge all who think they know exactly why the 13 colonies opted to leave Great Britain. -- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University, author of On Juneteenth
"Even readers who think they know all about the Revolution will find here a muchbroader, provocative narrative and new perspectives." * Booklist (starred review) *
"In his meticulously researched, beautifully calibrated Liberty Is Sweet,historian Woody Holton adds necessary nuance, building on . . .stories previously marginalized (or invisible) in our narrative of the nation's birth while illuminating a collective yearning to form a more perfect union. . . . Holton's painstaking yet vivid military coverage is one of the book's crowning achievements." -- Hamilton Cain * Minneapolis Star-Tribune *
"[Holton] has a gift for pacing and narrative detail . . . . One of [his] aims is not simply to offer an 'inclusive' historyone where ordinary people are just added to a familiar framebut to show us how including a wider swath of society can help us rethink the picture itself." -- Eric Herschthal * The New Republic *
"A spirited account of the Revolution that brings everybody and everything into the story." -- Gordon S. Wood, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Radicalism of the American Revolution
"A thoroughgoing work of scholarship that debunks many myths about the American Revolution by incorporating the full story involving Native Americans, African Americans, and women as participants. . . . Immensely readable. . . . A rich, multifaceted work showing how the U.S. has always been a multiracial nation." * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *
"In this provocative and wide-ranging book, Woody Holton astutely probes the causes, course, and consequences of our complex revolution. While carefully covering the usual leaders of the new nation,Liberty is Sweetalso deftly explores the lives of common men and women, of diverse races, who displayed uncommon courage in pursuing their clashing visions of equality and freedom." -- Pulitzer Prize-winner Alan Taylor, author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804
"Holtons exhaustive, masterfully written chronicle demonstrates that the Revolution was much more than a movement instigated by the political ideologies of a handful of elite, revered (although flawed) Founding Fathers against the British parliament and king. This book will be pivotal for scholars and requested by American history enthusiasts." * Library Journal (starred review) *

Author Bio

Woody Holton is McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches and researches Early American history, especially the American Revolution, with a focus on economic history and on African Americans, Native Americans, and women. He is the author of several previous books, includingAbigail Adams,which was awarded the Bancroft Prize; his second book,Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution,was a finalist for the National Book Award.