American Tempest: How the Boston Tea Party Sparked a Revolution

by Harlow Giles Unger

Book Overview

On Thursday, December 16, 1773, an estimated seven dozen men, many dressed as Indians, dumped roughly ?10,000 worth of tea in Boston Harbor. Whatever their motives at the time, they unleashed a social, political, and economic firestorm that would culminate in the Declaration of Independence two-and-a-half years later. The Boston Tea Party provoked a reign of terror in Boston and other American cities as tea parties erupted up and down the colonies...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306819627
• ISBN13: 9780306819629
• Release Date: March 2011
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Beware… Biases abound

While the core of Unger’s work here is decent, his personal bias against Samuel Adams is quite disdainful when it comes to how historical narrative should be written. While I recognize we all have those we appreciate more than others, this kind of writing cannot be done from that perspective and in that sense Unger fails quite miserably in this work. He also seems to under appreciate economic boycotting prior to the 1773 Tea Party and one could argue that the seeds of revolution were sewn long before December 16, 1773.