1776 by David McCullough Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of 1776
Book Review: 1776
Summary: 5 Stars
By the time "1776" begins, the aggravated colonists have long since tossed tea into the Boston Hahbah, the Second Continental Congress have begun printing eponymous bills at nearly Mugabean rates, shots have been heard throughout the world at Lexington and Concord, and the British have already wrangled their Pyrrhic victory at Bunker Hill. McCollough generously assumes his audience took a basic American History W3406 class, and thus turns our attention to the bellicose clashes in the British Parliament. There, a considerable minority of Lords and Commons maintained surprisingly outspoken opposition to the "unjust...fatal...ruinous" and "Machiavellian" American campaign of King George III, the supposed "Supreme Governor" of even the Ecclesiastical Realm.
Meanwhile, the newly appointed General George Washington attempted in haste to make something of his ragamuffin military recruits, who showed up in a panoply of "old broad, brimmed felt hats, weathered and sweat-stained, beaver hats, farmer's straw hats, or striped bandanas tied sailor fashion" and with arms "as various as their costumes," which were wantonly implemented to start fires and "blast away at geese." A British ship surgeon computed that rum made up a shockingly inordinate percentage of the rebels' provision carts.
McCollough's description of the American revolutionaries is hardly intended to be disparaging, however, and he provides a simultaneously restrained and romantic image of what seemed to emerge as their uniquely American spirit. The fact that the field officers were originally indistinguishable from the very troops they led seems to underscore a natural American discomfort with snobbish social hierarchy. McCollough says of the recruits, "It was an army of men accustomed to hard work, hard work being the common lot. They were familiar with adversity and making do in a harsh climate. Resourceful, handy with tools, they could drive a yoke of oxen or mend a pair of shoes. They knew from experience, most of them, the hardships and setbacks of life. Preparing for the worst was second in nature. Rare was the man who had never seen someone die."
Even an extreme cynic cannot help but be moved by the description of American rebels, such as Charles Lee's troops, who completed a snowy 200 mile Winter march south to the Delaware at a pace four times faster than their general had designed, and were, according to General Heath, "so destitute of shoes that the blood left on the frozen ground, in many places, marked the route that they had taken." Twenty-five year old Colonol Knox almost froze to death transporting 120,000 pounds of mortar and cannon across Lake George and the Hudson, and when a cannon fell to the bottom of the river, Knox insisted on spending a full day fetching it back out, with the "assistance of the good people of Albany."
The troops' tenacity had a good model in their Continental Army Commander, George Washington, who maintained an almost preposterous dedication to initiate grossly numerically disparate offensive attacks against the British, particularly in the brilliantly designed three-pronged advance at the Battle of Trenton. Washington indeed had a number of failures, but he retained committed to "Victory" (the Delaware Crossing password) "Or Death" (the response), even when it seemed as if the war was surely over in New York. We don't learn much about the source of Washington's, or really anybody's endless dedication to the "Noble Cause," as the book mostly addresses combat over propaganda and politics, other than the parenthetical mention of "Common Sense" and the personally and patriotically mushy letters of the soldiers to their wives. Indeed, it isn't entirely clear when Washington himself shifted his personal conviction that the goal ought to be greater autonomy (as evidenced by his hoisting of a new flag with 13 red and white Colonial stripes...along with the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew) to complete independence from Great Britain. However, the astonishingly brave and capable actions of soldiers on the battlefield provide a fascinating manifestation of this deeply held sense of purpose, which is readily apparent in this detailed and beautifully written book.
Book Review: 1776
Summary: 4 Stars
It is interesting and I am enjoying reading it, just have 4 chapters read so this is premature.Book Review: 1776
Summary: 4 Stars
Nice perspective of Washington and the trials he went through as a leader. Amazing the sacrifices many people went through to give us our independance.Book Review: 1776
Summary: 4 Stars
I have always been a fan of Revolutionary War history. I was born Williamsburg, it was easy as a kid to let imagination take over in a town like that. I thought 1776 was great. I thought that the book could be expanded to allow in the whole northern campaign of the war, Breeds Hill, Ticonderoga, Lexington, Concord and the events that led to these battles. However, it covered the year 1776 from Washington's perspective in a such a way that made me put the book down to just ponder the details of the story that no one, not even Washington, knew the way it would end. This book should be part of every high schools required reading list, because it can invigorate the understanding of our country's bedrock traditions. These traditions are so often unrealized, unappreciated words whose backstory is only vaguely understood by each new generation. This book will invite a love of history, and respect for history to all who read it...
Will Lutz
Book Review: 1776
Summary: 4 Stars
Palatable, digestible, and uncharacteristically bite-size, David McCullough's new page-turner, 1776, arrives just in time for Father's Day. Though the title suggests a wide-angle portrait of that crucial year, McCullough has once again zeroed in on a single heroic figure. Like his Pulitzer-winning Truman and John Adams, the 294-page 1776 celebrates the manly rectitude embodied by an American president, in this case the Father of Our Country. But I cannot tell a lie: Though there is nary a dull moment in this breezy book, 1776 amounts to a deeply unsatisfying account of both a fascinating man and a pivotal historical moment.
McCullough has chosen a year that resonates with our national psyche but brought the 43-year-old George Washington mostly misery. With his usual eye for colorful primary source quotations, McCullough evokes both the stature of his patrician hero (''There is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet de chambre by his side,'' one Philadelphian wrote) and the army he had been given to lead. As a British observer reported, ''They desert in large bodies, are sickly, filthy, divided, and unruly.''
Washington did not disagree. A rich Virginian who loved fox hunting, architecture, and theater (particularly Joseph Addison's tragedy Cato), he found the New Englanders under his command ''exceedingly dirty and nasty.'' They drank too much and ran off to dig clams at any chance. But Washington's cardinal strength, McCullough asserts, was ''an acceptance of mankind and circumstances as they were, not as he wished them to be.'' He was also, to use one of our current president's favorite adjectives, ''resolute.'' As Washington wrote in a letter, ''Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.''
Actually, in the absence of sufficient manpower and gunpowder, neither perseverance nor spirit did any wonders for Washington in the crucial battles of 1776. On July 2, the Continental Congress voted to ''dissolve the connection with Great Britain,'' and eight weeks later the redcoats drove Washington's army off New York's Long Island. McCullough's verdict: ''Washington had proven indecisive and inept: He and his general officers had not only failed; they had been made to look like fools.'' Three months later, Washington suffered another bitter defeat at Fort Washington, N.Y. Only in the last days of 1776, in a surprise attack, did Washington tentatively redeem his reputation and what he called his young country's ''glorious Cause.'' It is here, with the better part of a decade of war still ahead, that McCullough ends this engaging but fatally attenuated account.
Like the late, lamented Barbara Tuchman, McCullough has been unfairly criticized for glossing over ideas in favor of a seamless narrative and vivid characterizations. In fact, McCullough's finest books, like his 1981 portrait of the young Theodore Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback, are gems of cultural history, every bit as informative as they are fluidly written. With 1776, sadly, the accusation of ''history lite'' hits the mark. McCullough dispatches the Declaration of Independence in two pages, and it's a mystery what, say, Thomas Jefferson might be up to. You can polish off this volume without the slightest grasp of the glorious Cause that motivated Washington to slog through sleet and mud for eight brutal years. McCullough has crafted a deliciously readable book that leaves you famished for philosophical context.