From the Publisher
A lively gem of a book that expands our view of early-modern military life, pre-revolutionary Boston, and, in turn, the American Revolution.” — Washington Post
"A well-written, thoroughly interesting addition to the social history of the American Colonies." — Kirkus Reviews
"Penetrating and lyrical, Zabin’s Boston Massacre offers startling revelations on every page. To read this “family history” is to tread the cobbled streets of eighteenth-century British America, peering into shops, barracks, bedrooms, and government halls along the way. Zabin’s account ripples far beyond Boston on the vexed night of March 5, 1770, offering fresh understandings of the cause of liberty and its consequences. The American Revolution—indeed, early urban warfare itself—will never look the same." — Jane Kamensky, Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University, and author of A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley
"Zabin’s engaging history adds nuance and complexity to the political and social aspects of the American Revolution." — Booklist
“A compelling history of the Boston Massacre, weaving personal stories together to present a comprehensive view of this turning point incident." — Library Journal
"Historical accuracy and human understanding require coming down from the high ground and seeing people in all their complexity. Serena Zabin’s rich and highly enjoyable book does just that." — Kathleen DuVal, Wall Street Journal
"An intimate, complex, and moving picture of the friendships and family connections between Britons and Bostonians, in the throes of revolutionary change. Zabin’s eloquent account illuminates the ways in which the actors in this nation-making and empire-breaking drama experienced the rupture and transformation of the world they made together.” — Peter S. Onuf, author, with Annette Gordon-Reed, of Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination
Jane Kamensky
"Penetrating and lyrical, Zabin’s Boston Massacre offers startling revelations on every page. To read this “family history” is to tread the cobbled streets of eighteenth-century British America, peering into shops, barracks, bedrooms, and government halls along the way. Zabin’s account ripples far beyond Boston on the vexed night of March 5, 1770, offering fresh understandings of the cause of liberty and its consequences. The American Revolution—indeed, early urban warfare itself—will never look the same."
Washington Post
A lively gem of a book that expands our view of early-modern military life, pre-revolutionary Boston, and, in turn, the American Revolution.
Peter S. Onuf
"An intimate, complex, and moving picture of the friendships and family connections between Britons and Bostonians, in the throes of revolutionary change. Zabin’s eloquent account illuminates the ways in which the actors in this nation-making and empire-breaking drama experienced the rupture and transformation of the world they made together.”
Booklist
"Zabin’s engaging history adds nuance and complexity to the political and social aspects of the American Revolution."
Kathleen DuVal
"Historical accuracy and human understanding require coming down from the high ground and seeing people in all their complexity. Serena Zabin’s rich and highly enjoyable book does just that."
Booklist
"Zabin’s engaging history adds nuance and complexity to the political and social aspects of the American Revolution."
Washington Post
A lively gem of a book that expands our view of early-modern military life, pre-revolutionary Boston, and, in turn, the American Revolution.
Library Journal
01/01/2020
Focusing on the years leading up to the Boston Massacre, Zabin (Dangerous Economies) reveals an intermingling between the inhabitants of Boston and the soldiers stationed there to protect the government from riots as tensions increased. Soldiers were housed right in town, in close proximity to residents who considered them an occupying force. Families were stationed with the soldiers, and many soldiers married into Boston families during the occupation. This intermingling created a charged situation leading up to the massacre, pitting soldiers and family members against one other. Zabin spends little time dissecting the massacre itself, which has been studied in detail by other scholars. Instead, the author focuses on the personal lives of those who contributed to the tensions between soldiers and citizens. VERDICT Zabin has done extensive research into the public records of several Revolutionary era archives and has compiled a compelling history of the Boston Massacre, weaving personal stories together to present a comprehensive view of this turning point incident.—Danielle Williams, Univ. of Evansville
Kirkus Reviews
2019-11-11
The British army was not just a man's profession 250 years ago but instead "a social world of families, friends, and children."
A popular British song at the time of the Revolutionary War was called "The Girl I Left Behind Me." As it turns out, writes Zabin (History and American Studies/Carleton Coll.; Dangerous Economies: Status and Commerce in Imperial New York, 2009, etc.), the British army was in the habit of bringing women along with it, or intermarrying with local populations, so that life in a bivouac was a family affair. For four years, writes the author, one unit lived in Boston "on a peninsula hardly bigger than a square mile." Zabin observes that the old term "camp followers" denigrates the contributions of women to these units who contributed work that was useful and necessary. They were also prolific; as the author notes, "in the years 1768 to 1772, more than a hundred soldiers brought their babies into Boston's churches to be baptized." When the British unit quartered in Boston, late of campaigns in Portugal and elsewhere during the Seven Years' War, was caught up in the chain of rebellious events that culminated in the Boston Massacre, a local defended the soldiers who were on trial for murder. That local was John Adams, who was, at the same time, involved in the first stirrings of the revolution. One witness, Zabin writes, was a Massachusetts woman who knew the soldiers well enough to know their first names—and, indeed, married a member of the regiment less than a month later. By that time, such marriages were no longer points of pride, though, and neither defense nor prosecution raised what might have been interpreted as witness bias because "to do so would have cracked open the pretense to which both sides had tacitly agreed: that an enormous gulf separated soldiers and civilians."
A well-written, thoroughly interesting addition to the social history of the American Colonies.
