A very fine piece of historical reclamation that broadens our understanding of the road to revolution.
Moss reminds readers that the tea parties of the 1770s were not strictly a Boston affair, no matter how much the city enjoys its spuriously unique association.
Like the powder alarms that peppered the Colonial countryside, there were four serious “tea parties” that met the ships of the East India Company in 1773 and 1774. Evincing Moss’ bright and smart research work, this story of the various tea parties is embellished with lovely period maps, political cartoons and broadsides, prints, and paintings by John Singleton Copley and Joseph-Siffrede Duplessis. As well as covering the instigations and outcomes of the parties in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston, North Carolina, Moss adds boxed items to throw particular light on the Sons of Liberty, coffeehouses, the East India Company (“with great wealth comes great temptation. And great temptation often leads to gross corruption,” a very telling example of a corporation “too big to fail”), taxation, and tarring and feathering (she lets the Bostonians off the hook—it “rarely caused permanent damage”). Moss adds political commentary that is both stirring—Benjamin Franklin writing that England’s Parliament has “no idea that people can act from any principal but that of [self]-interest”—and provocative, as with her own question to readers: “What price does a moral standard have, after all?...What principals are worth paying for?” That meant taxation without say to Colonials; we might ask ourselves about working conditions and terrible wages.
A very fine piece of historical reclamation that broadens our understanding of the road to revolution. (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1874-8
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If Freedman wrote the history textbooks, we would have many more historians. Beginning with an engrossing description of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, he brings the reader the lives of the American colonists and the events leading up to the break with England. The narrative approach to history reads like a good story, yet Freedman tucks in the data that give depth to it. The inclusion of all the people who lived during those times and the roles they played, whether small or large are acknowledged with dignity. The story moves backwards from the Boston Tea Party to the beginning of the European settlement of what they called the New World, and then proceeds chronologically to the signing of the Declaration. “Your Rights and Mine” traces the influence of the document from its inception to the present ending with Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The full text of the Declaration and a reproduction of the original are included. A chronology of events and an index are helpful to the young researcher. Another interesting feature is “Visiting the Declaration of Independence.” It contains a short review of what happened to the document in the years after it was written, a useful Web site, and a description of how it is displayed and protected today at the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. Illustrations from the period add interest and detail. An excellent addition to the American history collection and an engrossing read. (Nonfiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8234-1448-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
Logically pointing out that the American cowboy archetype didn’t spring up from nowhere, Sandler, author of Cowboys (1994) and other volumes in the superficial, if luxuriously illustrated, “Library of Congress Book” series, looks back over 400 years of cattle tending in North America. His coverage ranges from the livestock carried on Columbus’s second voyage to today’s herding-by-helicopter operations. Here, too, the generous array of dramatic early prints, paintings, and photos are more likely to capture readers’ imaginations than the generality-ridden text. But among his vague comments about the characters, values, and culture passed by Mexican vaqueros to later arrivals from the Eastern US, Sadler intersperses nods to the gauchos, llaneros, and other South American “cowmen,” plus the paniolos of Hawaii, and the renowned African-American cowboys. He also decries the role film and popular literature have played in suppressing the vaqueros’ place in the history of the American West. He tackles an uncommon topic, and will broaden the historical perspective of many young cowboy fans, but his glance at modern vaqueros seems to stop at this country’s borders. Young readers will get a far more detailed, vivid picture of vaquero life and work from the cowboy classics in his annotated bibliography. (Notes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6019-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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