Winner of the prestigious 1977 Bancroft Prize (awarded for excellence in American history), this carefully considered in-depth look into the lives and community of those original American Heroes—the minutemen of Lexington and Concord—broke new ground in zeroing-in on the social aspects of a single township: Concord, Massachusetts. From the back cover, this praise: “It captures, intimately and authentically, the life of an 18th-century New England town, and it conveys … the entanglement of that life in the surge of stirring events of a wider world.” Another claims: “The Minutemen and Their World is likely to be one of the few enduring works of the Bicentennial” (the book originally published in 1976). Multiple reviews state: “Robert Gross has written a remarkably subtle and detailed reconstruction of the lives and community of this special place … (a) town—future home to Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne—that would come to symbolize a devotion to liberty, intellectual freedom, and the stubborn integrity of rural life.” From Gross’s preface we gain the full surround of his inspiration: “Many writers have told Concord’s story. For the most part, theirs have been tales of great events and great men … This book takes a different approach. It sets the Concord fight, as it used to be known, in the context of the townspeople’s ordinary lives, before and after April 19, 1775.” This study is in keeping with a corrective shift that occurred across the 1960s-70s (and well into our 21st century) devoted to widening the historical aperture, to let in much more of the light of our past; the goal being: establish a new baseline that recognizes history is made as much—if not more—by common folk. Including their stories makes understanding our American past that much more complete. [Condition: Used Very Good — minor chipping near spine, very slight shelf wear, may never have been read in full it is in such fine shape]
Condition: Used Very Good. Nonfiction / History. Robert A. Gross. Hill And Wang, 1976. Softcover, 242 pgs, 5.25 x 8" / 10 oz
