Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution

Alfred F Young

11/2006 · NYU Press

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The renowned historian offers a “subtle, complex, and bold” reassessment of the American Revolution in this acclaimed essay collection (Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States).

In Liberty Tree, Alfred F. Young presents a selection of his seminal writing as well as two provocative, never-before-published essays. Together, they take the reader on a journey through the American Revolution, exploring the role played by ordinary women and men (called, at the time, people out of doors) in shaping events during and after the Revolution, their impact on the Founding generation of the new American nation, and finally how this populist side of the Revolution has fared in public memory.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, which include not only written documents but also material items like powder horns, and public rituals like parades and tarring and featherings, Young places ordinary Americans at the center of the Revolution. Moreover, Young interrogates standard historical narratives through close examination of Revolutionary icons, such as the pamphleteer Thomas Paine and Boston's Freedom Trail.

For decades, Young's path-breaking work has shed light on ordinary people of the Revolutionary era, seamlessly blending sophisticated analysis with compelling prose. From his award-winning work on mechanics, or artisans, in the seaboard cities of the Northeast to the all but forgotten liberty tree, a major popular icon of the Revolution explored in depth for the first time, Young continues to astound readers as he forges new directions in the history of the American Revolution.

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Alfred F. Young is Alfred Young is Emeritus Professor of History, Northern Illinois University. His numerous books include The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution and Liberty Tree: Ordinary People and the American Revolution (NYU Press).