townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-6.4
Originality-2.3
Plot-N/A
Enjoyability-5.9
Merit(whatever that means)-5.8
Overall-6.0

This was a Christmas present from my dad. Thanks, D!

I know embarrassingly little about our country’s birth via revolution. And this book is probably not as good a place to start as I had hoped. It covers almost literally only what happens in the year of 1776. Which seems like a pretty important year because it’s the year that we declared independence and so choose to call America’s birth year. However, the Revolutionary War continued until 1783 and this book covers almost exclusively the war and what happens to Washington’s Continental Army during this year and not the politics or social implications of the declaration of independence and why we decided to revolt in the first place. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it seems like a strange choice to cover only the battles fought during this year, which may indeed be a militarily pivotal year (I don’t know because I don’t know anything about the other seven years of the war), but seems more a year of symbolic importance rather than militarily.

The book starts off really well. McCullough paints a very vivid image of King George and George Washington and Nathaneal Greene and Henry Knox among other important figures on both sides. And he is a very good pop history writer. I was perfectly enthralled through the first half of the book. However, in the second half, it digresses into very repetitive troop movements, minor skirmishes, retreats, river crossings, troop morale, etc. This is the type of history that I pretty much abhor. Why do historians care so much about who outflanked who and who led this charge up this hill when and who moved the artillery where? I mean, it seems ridiculous. Here you have one of the most important episodes in world history as the new world colonies rise up in revolt for fairly vague reasons and overthrow the European monarchies and empires that ruled the world and develop a fairly brilliant new form of government and we’re talking about some minor General So-and-so who raided some outpost and made off with a couple of cannons and gunpowder. It doesn’t make much sense to me.

And it’s the same throughout history. With the Civil War and World War II and so forth. I mean it’s so interesting why we are motivated to get into these wars and how it all plays out politically and socially, but historians repeatedly choose to talk about all the minor details of the military campaigns. And in writing about these campaigns, they even manage to make something as crazy as war seem sterile and boring. I guess it’s just easier on the historian to go this route. These sorts of things are easier to document and fact check and be objective about. But, at the end of the day, what have I, the reader, learned from all this that is of any value? Not much. Most people can name a couple of generals and a couple of big battles and the years that each war took place, but how many people can talk even semi-intelligently about why we went into WWI or even WWII, or Vietnam, or why did the War of 1812 happen, or the Civil War even? At best, the average person might rattle off slavery or communism or the Lusitania or the Holocaust as answers to these querries but, are these answers really adequate?

I was also struck by the casualty numbers and it got me to thinking about the evolution of war. It really stood out that he would talk about some of the fiercest fighting of the Revolutionary War and some of the pivotal, biggest battles and then in the overall tally it would be something like—there were 4 dead, 23 wounded, and over 900 prisoners taken. What? Only 4 dead and 900 surrendered? And this happens over and over again. And then you read a Civil War history and there are battles with tens of thousands of casualties. What’s the difference here? I know there are a couple of inventions that made a big difference like the muzzle loader vs. breech loader and more and more accuracy with weapons because of the bore of the barrel and bullet design and whatnot, but does that explain the huge disparity? Why do historians, again, just list the numbers and not acknowledge what they may represent?

Anyhoo, overall, other than falling into this military writing trap, I thought that McCullough was a pretty good writer. This book certainly won’t discourage me from taking a look at, say, his book on Harry Truman. In fact, the start of this book, primarily the background on King George and George Washington, might prompt me to read this sooner rather than later. But, it’s not at all a good overview of the American Revolution, which I’d hoped that it would be. It’s really the battles of 1776 from the Americans’ siege of Boston to the Battle of Brooklyn and then the “major” (read: symbolic) American victories of Trenton and Princeton. As soon as 1777 rolls around, you’re on your own.