Review by Choice Review
About much more than the brutalization of soldiers and noncombatants, this well-written history of America's first civil war runs from the 1770 Boston Massacre through the 1780s following the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Anglo-American conflict. Involved were patriots seeking separation, loyalists wanting to remain with the British Empire, Native Americans who feared American independence, German mercenaries hired by Great Britain to support British troops, and slaves and noncombatants on the patriot and loyalist sides. Because both sides needed civilian support, British and American officers worked to limit plundering, which involved murder, rape, and flogging as well as the destruction and/or theft of property. Yet violence continued, with each side emphasizing the abuse perpetrated by the other. Once Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, it became obvious the US would become an independent nation, which raised the issue of reintegrating the loyalists. Though many fled and never returned, others came back, and, with the loyalists who had remained, strengthened their local and national economies. Patriots and American histories whitewashed their reputation on the American side of the pond; loyalists continue to be honored across the Atlantic. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. --Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
HE CALLS ME BY LIGHTNING: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice, and the Death Penalty, by S. Jonathan Bass. (Liveright, $26.95.) A young black man wrongly accused of killing a policeman in Alabama in 1957 faced a 44-year legal battle; his painstakingly documented story illuminates the racial justice system. RISING STAR: The Making of Barack Obama, by David J. Garrow. (Morrow/HarperCollins, $45.) This long, deeply reported but gratuitously snarly biography argues that the young president-to-be subordinated everything, including love, to a politically expedient journey-to-blackness narrative. THE GOLDEN LEGEND, by Nadeem Aslam. (Knopf, $27.95.) In Aslam's powerful and engrossing fifth novel, set in an imaginary Pakistani city ruled by mob violence, sectarianism and intolerance, the principal characters become hunted fugitives. Their integrity and courage nevertheless provide hope. THE UNRULY CITY: Paris, London and New York in the Age of Revolution, by Mike Rapport. (Basic Books, $32.) What accounts for differing degrees of upheaval when societies are in crisis? A historian's examination of the 18th-century revolutions in urban Britain, America and France is both readable and scholarly. MEN WITHOUT WOMEN: Stories, by Haruki Murakami. Translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen. (Knopf, $25.95.) In this slim (seven stories) but beguilingly irresistible book, Murakami whips up a melancholy soufflé about wounded men who can't hold on to the women they love. SCARS OF INDEPENDENCE: America's Violent Birth, by Holger Hoock. (Crown, $30.) This important and revelatory book adopts violence as its central analytical and narrative focus, forcing readers to confront the visceral realities of a conflict too often bathed in warm, nostalgic light. The Revolution in this telling is a war like any other. CALIFORNIA DREAMIN': Cass Elliot Before the Mamas and the Papas, by Pénélope Bagieu. (First Second, $24.99.) Bagieu uses the entire range of her medium, graphite, to show - in drawings both exuberant and sad - how a Baltimore girl named Ellen Cohen became Mama Cass. FIRST LOVE, by Gwendoline Riley. (Melville House, paper, $16.99.) A 30-something writer falls in love with and marries a man who says he doesn't "have a nice bone in my body." This dark, funny novel displays its author's mastery of scrupulous psychological detail and ear for the ways love inverts itself into cruelty. THE LONG DROP, by Denise Mina. (Little, Brown, $26.) In a departure from her usual series, Mina's new novel is based on a real crime spree that horrified Glasgow in the late 1950s. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 8, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
As many historians have acknowledged, America's struggle for independence was a mixture of noble and enduring ideals, heroic sacrifices, and the violence, brutality, and betrayals that accompany warfare. So Hoock is hardly reinventing the wheel in emphasizing the violent aspects of the American Revolution. Still, this litany and the accompanying descriptions of the outrages and injustices that patriots and Tories inflicted on each other make for engrossing and disturbing reading. There are repeated instances of mob violence, most notably at the so-called Boston Massacre. Both the British and the Americans mistreated and sometimes executed prisoners of war. The war pitted American loyalists and rebels against each other, especially in the South, where many took the opportunity to settle personal scores. African Americans, both enslaved and free, were exploited and betrayed by both sides. George Washington's pacification of Indian tribes sympathetic to the British along the western frontier included massive destruction of villages and outright murder. This is difficult but necessary reading, a book that reminds us that victory in our Glorious Cause came at a terrible cost.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this detailed account of the American Revolution, Hoock (Empires of the Imagination), professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, recovers the central role of violence in shaping the revolutionary experience. Arguing that existing historical narratives elide the conflict's pervasive emotional, physical, and psychological traumas, Hoock attends to the violent acts and rhetoric that affected communities on both sides of the war, taking care to discuss the revolution's effects on white women, Native Americans, and enslaved people as well as the white men in power. In each chapter, he examines a related set of violent stories, including British attacks on American soldiers, the torture and oppression of loyalists, sexual assaults against women, and military genocide against Native Americans. Hoock does not shy away from graphic depictions of violence; his history seethes with descriptions of people being beaten, wounded, tarred and feathered, and worse. The gruesome accuracy of these scenes reflects both Hoock's painstaking archival work and his commitment to calling this past to account, but some readers may find it challenging to engage fully with the book's catalogue of suffering. Nonetheless, Hoock strikes an effective balance between description and broader historical analysis, crafting a gripping narrative that holds appeal for general audiences and historians alike. Agent: Susan Rabiner, Susan Rabiner Literary. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Hoock presents the American Revolution/War of Independence as America's First Civil War, describing in great detail numerous accounts of violence of Tories against Patriots and vice versa. He especially goes into detail about how prisoners of war were handled, or, rather, mishandled, by both sides. Scott Brick's clear diction and resonant baritone are splendid in reading these numerous accounts of rape, pillage, lynching, murder, and general inhumanity of humans to one another. He is very measured and disciplined in his delivery and pacing. His overall tone is understated, effecting dis-passion. VERDICT All libraries should consider. ["Hoock has written a history of violence in the Revolutionary War that is as fascinating as it is enlightening": LJ 3/1/17 starred review of the Crown hc.]-Michael T. Fein, Central Virginia Community Coll., Lynchburg © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The American Revolution was no festive musical.German-born historian Hoock (British History/Univ. of Pittsburgh; Empires of the Imagination: Politics, War, and the Arts in the British World, 1750-1850, 2010, etc.) asserts that this is "the first book on the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War to adopt violence as its central analytical and narrative focus." Over time, he writes, the Revolution's pervasive violence and terror have "yielded to a strangely bloodless narrative of the war that mirrors the image of a tame and largely nonviolent Revolution." In fact, he claims in this fresh approach to a well-trod subject, "to understand the Revolution and the warthe very birth of the nationwe must write the violence, in all its forms, back into the story." This he certainly does, examining both physical and psychological violence inflicted by all participantsBritish, German and colonial military forces, Patriot and Loyalist partisans and civilians, Native Americans, and free and enslaved blackson each other throughout the conflict. The catalog of misery includes battlefield atrocities, rape and plunder of civilians, inhumane imprisonment, lynchings and expulsions, and the scorched-earth destruction of crops, plantations, and entire towns. Hoock suggests that the conflict is best understood as America's first civil war rather than as a colonial uprising. He also considers at length the struggles by civil and military leaders of both sides to determine what levels of violence would be efficacious in achieving their objectives and acceptable under contemporary ethical standards, issues of continuing relevance today. Deeply researched and buttressed by extensive useful endnotes, this is history that will appeal to both scholars and general readers. The author presents his grim narrative in language that is vivid without becoming lurid. In urging an acceptance of historical accuracy over our foundational myths, he hopes to direct us toward "an approach to global leadershipmore restrained, finely calibrated, and generously spirited." An accomplished, powerful presentation of the American Revolution as it was, rather than as we might wish to remember it. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.